Introducing The Worst Way To Die Ever - Factory Worker Cooked Alive In Industrial Oven With 6 Tons Of Tuna Fish
LOS ANGELES — Bumble Bee Foods and two managers were charged by Los Angeles prosecutors Monday with violating safety regulations in the death of a worker who was cooked in an industrial oven with tons of tuna.
Jose Melena was performing maintenance in a 35-foot-long oven at the company’s Santa Fe Springs plant before dawn when a co-worker, who mistakenly believed Melena was in the bathroom, filled the pressure cooker with 12,000 pounds of canned tuna and it was turned on.
When a supervisor noticed Melena, 62, was missing, an announcement was made on the intercom and employees searched for him in the facility and parking lot, according to a report by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health. His body was found two hours later after the pressure cooker, which reached a temperature of 270 degrees, was turned off and opened.
The company, its plant operations director Angel Rodriguez and former safety manager Saul Florez were each charged with three counts of violating Occupational Safety & Health Administration rules that caused a death.
The charges specify that the company and the two men willfully violated rules that require implementing a safety plan, rules for workers entering confined spaces, and a procedure to keep machinery or equipment turned off if someone’s working on it.
Rodriguez, 63, of Riverside, and Florez, 42, of Whittier, could face up to three years in prison and fines up to $250,000 if convicted of all charges, prosecutors said. Bumble Bee Foods faces a maximum fine of $1.5 million.
The state’s occupational safety agency previously cited the San Diego-based company for failing to properly assess the danger to employees working in large ovens and fined it $74,000.
Bumble Bee, which has appealed the penalties, said the company improved its safety program after the tragedy.
If there’s a worse way to die than having 12,000 pounds of tuna fish dumped on top of your unsuspecting head then being boiled alive in it in an industrial oven, speak up now because I’d love to hear it. Just flat out don’t think it gets any worse than that. Like burning/boiling alive sounds awful enough, but then add the literal tons of wet, salty, slimy tuna fish to the mix and it’s basically game over for the horrible death competition. [Game of Thrones spoiler alert] No Jon Snow walking through that door to put an arrow through your heart to put you out of your misery either. [End of spoiler]. Just straight up sitting there and being slowly cooked alive in a 6 ton mass of white albacore. Wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.