Worker Dies After Being Cooked In Tuna Plant Oven

CBS Local L.A. ^ | 10-13-12 | Staff

[Red Badger]

SANTA FE SPRINGS (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 Jose Melena was found Thursday shortly before 7 a.m. at the plant in Santa Fe Springs. California Division of Occupational Safety and Health spokeswoman Erika Monterroza says t’s unclear how the man ended up inside a cooking device called a “steamer machine.”

The state department has launched an investigation into the accident.

In a written statement, Bumble Bee Foods spokesman Pat Menke expressed condolences to Melena’s family and says operations at the canning facility will be suspended at the plant until Monday.

[Red Badger]

May have ‘Pushes’ fault.......

[Red Badger]

Well, thdt tells me it wasn’t CORONA..........

[ASA Vet]

Doesn't sound like he died “after” being cooked but rather during the cooking.

[floozy22]

They said he makes one heck of a tuna casserole.

[OSHA]

I wonder if his name was Stanley?

[Terry Mross]

Maybe he crawled in to take a siesta and someone came along and turned on the machine. I can’t think of any other way it could have happened other than murder.

[boycott]

Lol.

[diamond6]

I think that people who mock someone who died a horrible and painful death are sick in the head.

Shame on you.

[goat granny]

hope thay take that batch of tuna off the market Tuna and humans don’t make a good sandwich

[Revolting cat!]

Tuna and humans don’t make a good sandwich

Tried one? Tell us about it.

[goat granny]

that dam eye kept looking at me. Fed it to my dog, she’s blind...

[Conservative4Ever]

Some of you FReepers are sick bastards...funny, but sick. :-)

[a fool in paradise]

"Tuna Plant? You no fool me, tuna doesn't grow on plants!"

[dalereed]

put a little bit of him in each can and no one will ever know the difference!

[Myrddin]

I've worked in the LDS cannery in San Diego many times. We had a line of people doing the "filet" work to separate the quality meat from the cooked whole fish. I often ran the machine that loaded the empty cans into a large mechanical feeder. My wife took care of the pot full of "spring water" with spices. The cleaned meat followed a belt into a cylindrical "former" that filled the can with a portion. That portion was given a fill with the "spring water", then the can top was applied and sealed. The cans are then loaded into large bins that are placed in the large steamer. The steamer cooks and sterilizes the can contents. After steaming, the cans are moved to an adjacent building where labels are applied and labeled cans are boxed and sealed.

The steamer unit in our facility handled bins that were roughly a cube 4 feet on an edge. Plenty large enough for a full grown man to sit inside comfortably. If the employee had crawled inside the steamer to retrieve a stuck bin, he might have been overlooked by another employee loading bins.

On a good night, our volunteer "crew" would can over 4,000 cans of white albacore tuna in spring water (6 oz) that was distributed to the "bishop's storehouse" facilities world wide. The fish was purchased from monthly fast offering money from local members in San Diego. The labor was donated by members and recruited from wards across San Diego. When the tuna fleet left San Diego, the facility was converted into a dry goods canning line to support setting aside personal preparedness food storage. It is open to members and non-members of the church with competent onsite training to help to can your food.