I'm 54 years old. I have fairly well kept up with local & national news all my adult life... and this is the first time I've ever read or heard of anyone dying in this manner. Sure hope he didn't suffer.
A worker was killed in a tuna fish cooker [steamed to death] at a Bumble Bee Tuna plant.
It is hard to imagine how he would have 'accidentally' gotten caught inside the machine. The story doesn't say how large the machine is... but if he was working on the inside of the machine, he may have failed to 'lock-out' the machine & red tag it before going inside... and someone came along, shut the door and turned it on by accident. Some industrial machines have removable safety lockout keys so that kind of accident cannot happen. Otherwise, I'd sure suspect foul play.
So I would remind all maintenance workers... to always always red tag & lock out potentially dangerous equipment you are working on and remove the safety key if it has one. When I did that kind of work, we had lock boxes that fit over equipment plugs, that the individual worker was the only one who had a key to it.. if he put the lock on and he was the only one who could take it off. If the machine had a removable safety key, the worker put the key in his pocket until he put the machine back into service again. If the only way to shut the power off to the equipment was to throw the breaker, then we put a lock on the breaker box that only we had a key too.. so no one could reset the breaker.
Worker cooked to death at California tuna plant
Published: October 12, 2012 Associated Press
SANTA FE SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) Authorities say a 62-year-old employee was cooked to death at a Southern California seafood plant for tuna maker Bumble Bee Foods.
The Whittier Daily News reports (http://bit.ly/TmJFyv ) Jose Melena was found shortly before 7 a.m. Thursday at the plant in Santa Fe Springs.
Erika Monterroza is a spokeswoman for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health. She says it's unclear how the man ended up inside a cooking device called a "steamer machine."
The state agency has launched an investigation.
Bumble Bee Foods spokesman Pat Menke expressed condolences to Melena's family in a written statement. Menke says operations at the canning facility will be suspended until Monday.
A worker was killed in a tuna fish cooker [steamed to death] at a Bumble Bee Tuna plant.
It is hard to imagine how he would have 'accidentally' gotten caught inside the machine. The story doesn't say how large the machine is... but if he was working on the inside of the machine, he may have failed to 'lock-out' the machine & red tag it before going inside... and someone came along, shut the door and turned it on by accident. Some industrial machines have removable safety lockout keys so that kind of accident cannot happen. Otherwise, I'd sure suspect foul play.
So I would remind all maintenance workers... to always always red tag & lock out potentially dangerous equipment you are working on and remove the safety key if it has one. When I did that kind of work, we had lock boxes that fit over equipment plugs, that the individual worker was the only one who had a key to it.. if he put the lock on and he was the only one who could take it off. If the machine had a removable safety key, the worker put the key in his pocket until he put the machine back into service again. If the only way to shut the power off to the equipment was to throw the breaker, then we put a lock on the breaker box that only we had a key too.. so no one could reset the breaker.
Worker cooked to death at California tuna plant
Published: October 12, 2012 Associated Press
SANTA FE SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) Authorities say a 62-year-old employee was cooked to death at a Southern California seafood plant for tuna maker Bumble Bee Foods.
The Whittier Daily News reports (http://bit.ly/TmJFyv ) Jose Melena was found shortly before 7 a.m. Thursday at the plant in Santa Fe Springs.
Erika Monterroza is a spokeswoman for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health. She says it's unclear how the man ended up inside a cooking device called a "steamer machine."
The state agency has launched an investigation.
Bumble Bee Foods spokesman Pat Menke expressed condolences to Melena's family in a written statement. Menke says operations at the canning facility will be suspended until Monday.
