SANTA FE SPRINGS, Ca. (by Charita Marsh) California workplace safety officials are investigating how a worker at a Bumble Bee Foods seafood plant wound up being cooked to death in an industrial oven.
The accident happened Thursday morning at the Bumble Bee Foods factory in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., KTLA.com reported.
Police and fire personnel, responding to a 911 call from the business, found a worker dead inside a cooking device called a “steamer machine,” according to KTLA.
The victim was identified as Jose Malena, 62, an employee at the factory for more than six years.
An initial investigation indicated that Malena “was fatally injured when he was cooked in an oven,” California Division of Occupational Safety and Health spokeswoman Erika Monterroza told the Whittier Daily News.
Cal-OSHA is trying to determine how the man wound up in the oven and whether there were any workplace safety regulatory violations.
“The entire Bumble Bee Foods family is saddened by the tragic loss of our colleague, and our thoughts and prayers are with the Melena family,” Bumble Bee Foods spokesman Pat Menke said in a statement to KTLA.
Operations at the plant were suspended until Monday.
