Number 9 Luana D’Orazio
Nationwide calls for better workplace safety, both from the public and competent authorities, were
issued throughout Italy, in 2021, following the death of a worker at a textile factory in Prato,
Tuscany province. 22-year-old Luana D’Orazio had been employed at the factory for about a
year. On May the 3rd, she was stationed at a warper, an industrial machine that features
large rolling bars which sort out threads. D’Orazio’s shirt was caught by the machine
and she was pulled inside. It only took about 7 seconds, according to subsequent reports,
for an employee to activate an emergency stop. By then, however, the mother-of-one’s body
had already been turned and compressed twice by the warper’s “deadly embrace”,
as stated by a technical consultant assigned to the case. D’Orazio’s chest was crushed and she
passed away in the aftermath. The investigation into her death was closed in October of 2021
and it found that the factory’s management had prioritized revenue over employee safety.
A protective gate valve had been removed, causing the rolling bar that hooked D’Orazio
to protrude more than it should have. By eliminating the warper’s safety feature,
the factory would’ve allegedly seen an increase of at least 8% in productivity. Luana Coppini,
the company’s owner, along with her husband, reported as the plant’s de facto administrator,
and the maintenance technician who’d materially tampered with the machine,
all faced manslaughter charges. D’Orazio’s passing caused a considerable degree of public outrage,
in the midst of which street artist Jori created a mural, in Rome, meant to honor her memory while
also raising awareness about companies that put “profit before the lives of workers”.
Number 8 Laila El Harim
A mother-of-one perished in gruesome circumstances at an Italian sweet packaging factory, in August
of 2021, after she was dragged into one of the industrial machines that she’d been operating.
40-year-old Laila El Harim, originally from Morocco, had lived in Italy for over two decades.
She’d recently started working for Bombonette, a company specializing in food packaging products,
and was thrilled about the position as the factory was only 10 minutes from her home in the town of
Bastiglia. At the start of her shift, on August the 3rd, she was working at a die-cutter, a
large machine used to shape packaging material. It reportedly featured a double mechanical operating
block that could only be handled manually. Details of what followed weren’t released, pending the
conclusion of an official investigation but, at some point, El Harim was caught in the cutting
machine. Colleagues alerted the police and medical services arrived at the scene but there was
nothing more to be done for El Harim as she’d already been crushed to death. An update on the
inquiry in progress indicated that the victim hadn’t been trained to operate the machine to
which she’d been assigned, which would make Bombonette susceptible to manslaughter charges.
Number 7 Jill Greninger
On April the 22nd of 2019, a woman died at factory in Pennsylvania after falling into a commercial
grade meat grinder. 35-year-old Jill Greninger was an employee at Economy Locker Storage Co.,
in Pennsport, and was operating the machine at around 11:40 am.
None of her fellow employees witnessed the incident as it unfolded but one did report
hearing a noise before finding Greninger’s body inside the grinder. She’d suffered life-ending
injuries inflicted by the machine which was specifically designed for tearing apart
meat. It took 45 minutes for staff to disassemble it and recover the woman’s remains. The overall
context of the incident remained unclear but the Lycoming County Coroner reported that Greninger
had been standing on a set of wheeled stairs at the time. It was presumed that she’d somehow lost
her balance and tumbled inside the grinder. The coroner declared her death to have been
a “horrible accident” but an investigation from the Occupational Safety & Health Administration
subsequently found at least eleven serious safety violations at the meat processing
business. In October of that same year, Economy Locker Storage Co. was fined close to $50,000.
Number 6 Regina Allen Elsea
In June of 2016, an Alabama factory worker was crushed to death in an incident that
involved an industrial robotic arm. It occurred at an Ajin USA plant, in Cusseta,
which employed a staff of several hundred that primarily dealt with stamping metal parts for
Hyundai and Kia vehicles. During an assembly line stoppage, 20-year-old Regina Allen Elsea
entered a robotic station to clear a sensor fault. The line was restarted abruptly, while the young
woman was still servicing the station, and she was crushed inside. Elsea suffered devastating
injuries to which she succumbed on June the 19th, roughly two weeks before her wedding day. Several
authoritative branches, including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, investigated the
incident. Ajin would ultimately plead guilty to breaking the federal standard that required the
use of safety protocols, known as lockout/tagout procedures, aimed at preventing the sudden machine
startup that had resulted in Elsea’s death. In November of 2020, a judge ordered the auto parts
manufacturer to pay a fine of $500,000 and $1 million to the deceased worker’s estate.
Number 5 David Spano
A Michigan worker was fatally crushed by multiple tons of materials, in November of 2020,
at a factory in Romeo. 42-year-old David Spano was employed by Romeo RIM Inc.,
a company specialized in making automotive parts, at its main plant.
He died after roughly 25,000 pounds of manufacturing mold,
primarily used for the production of bus bumpers, collapsed on top of him from one of the factory’s
interior walls. Spano died instantly under the 12-and-a-half ton weight of the mold, in an
impact comparable to that of a cruise ship anchor being dropped on top of his body. It was initially
reported as an accident but an investigation was launched. It was unclear, however, in its early
stages if Spano had received the proper training in recognizing hazardous situations at the plant.
Number 4 Martin Pejril
On February the 20th of 2008, a Czech national suffered a painful death in a workplace accident
at Britain’s largest confectionary firm. Martin Pejril had climbed into a jelly bean machine,
at a plant operated by Tangerine Confectionary, to investigate a blockage involving sweet trays. The
starch room operator had limited apprehension of English and was believed to have misunderstood or
misheard an instruction to switch off and isolate the device prior to servicing it. The machine then
abruptly restarted, trapping Pejril inside, and his body was slowly compressed as two heavy rotary
arms sprang into action. A fellow employee tried to turn the machine off, but unwittingly pressed
the wrong button. Other employees alerted the emergency services and attempted to
manually extract Pejril, who was ultimately pronounced dead at the scene. An inquest into the
incident found that the Tangerine Confectionary hadn’t had proper safety protocols in place
when it came to assigning staff to investigate and clear blockages. The Bournemouth Crown Court
was also told that the machine was prone to blockages and would go through up to 40 of them
in one shift. The firm was fined the equivalent of $400,000 in the aftermath.
Number 3 Matthew Lowe
Shortly before Christmas, in 2008, a plate welder sustained devastating injuries at a
Compass Engineering factory in Barugh, England. Father-of-one Matthew Lowe was operating a
computer-controlled conveyor belt which processed steel beams. At some point during the workday,
Lowe’s overalls got caught in the machinery and he was forcefully pulled backwards. Lowe’s
entire body, with the exception of his head, was then pushed sideways through a 5-inch gap.
Looking back on the horrific accident, Lowe remembered that he “relaxed and hoped for
the best” knowing he’d be powerless to oppose the machine. His body was mangled and his clothes were
ripped apart as the conveyor belt processed him and then spat him out the other end. He was alone
in that part of the factory, at the time, and was found after two workmen heard his pain-induced
screams. Lowe was rushed to the hospital where his partner, 29-year-old teaching assistant Kim Swift,
was told to expect the worst. The man’s face was purple and the whites of his eyes were red
due to the immense pressure to which he’d been subjected. Swift recounted that he was alert but
didn’t know he’d been dragged into the machine and forced through a space that was only about
twice the size of a golf tee. The 25-year-old had suffered a ruptured stomach and bowel,
a shattered pelvis as well as broken ribs and a fractured arm. Lowe underwent six surgeries
involving numerous metal pins used to piece his body back together. He experienced a remarkable
recovery but still suffered from panic attacks in the period following the accident. After about
18 months, he returned to Compass Engineering and began training for a supervisor position.
Today's topic was requested by Nullix, Liz Williams, Mr Nar and BrightSoul Claes. If
you have any other topics you'd like to learn about, subscribe & let us know in the comments
section below. Number 2 Zhou
In December of 2018, a Chinese factory worker was skewered with multiple steel rods after a
robotic arm collapsed on top of him. The incident took place at a porcelain plant, in Zhuzhou,
in southern China's Hunan Province. The 49-year-old victim, only identified as Zhou,
was left in critical condition after the machinery had impaled him with its steel pins.
His colleagues took him to a local emergency room and he was subsequently
transferred to Xiangya Hospital, in the provincial capital. Zhou survived but was left with ten metal
spikes embedded in various areas of his body. They were sharp-pointed and each about a foot long
and over half an inch in diameter. Eight of them had speared through Zhou’s right arm and forearm,
several breaking through to the other side. One spike had impaled his shoulder while another
was lodged in his chest. Because the pieces were long and made of metal, Zhou couldn’t be given an
X-Ray. He was also unable to lie down and had to lean on the assistance of nearly a dozen doctors
and nurses. The day after the gruesome accident, Zhou underwent an emergency operation involving
specialists from multiple hospital departments. They were successful in extracting the spikes and
the worker began to recover. Zhou was extremely fortunate to have survived the accident,
as the rod in his chest had missed a major artery by only 0.04 inches.
Number 1 Jomar Junco
An accident at a sausage factory in Iloilo City, in the Philippines,
claimed the life of a teenage worker, in June of 2019. Jomar Junco, aged 18, had been employed at
the factory for about two weeks and his job was to package finished products. Junco was
assisting his more experienced colleague, Carl David Carlos, who was working with a meat mixer.
The latter stepped away for a moment at which point Junco tried to operate the machine alone,
even though he hadn’t been trained to do so. The teenager got his arm caught in the
mechanism which rapidly pulled him in headfirst. Carlos returned to find Junco’s legs sticking out
of the meat mixer. He tried turning it off, but the teenager was already beyond saving.
Police were called to the factory and they removed his body from the machine, which had
either experienced a blockage or the activation of a failsafe as Junco’s remains were largely intact.
A funeral director later told a media outlet that Junco had likely died of suffocation instead of
blunt force trauma. A police investigation was launched but foul play wasn’t suspected, with
the accident being attributed to Junco’s ill-fated decision to operate the mixer without supervision.
Thanks for watching! Would you rather attempt to escape a car
as it was being crushed by a giant compactor OR
try to climb out of an industrial grain silo? Let us know in the comments section below!