On Friday morning, a 33-year-old worker died after she was pulled into a processing machine at the Del Rey Packing Company in California.
According to multiple reports, Yaneth Lopez Valladares died as a result of the traumatic injuries she sustained after her hair and loose clothing became entangled with a shaft to a cylinder in the machine.
At about 11:00 am, the single mother of three was clearing debris from a Stem Grading Line used to break-up bunches of raisins. Co-workers shut off the machine immediately and called 911 but Valladares succumbed to her injuries at the scene.
According to OSHA, which is investigating the accident, Valladares was working for Blessed Harvest, a farm labor contractor. She had worked at the facility for two seasons.
A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to help Valladares's family.
OSHA emphasizes the importance of both machine guarding and safe work procedures. Proper guarding can help prevent employee entanglement, and is one of the top ten most frequent citations from the safety agency. Safe work procedures are formal written instructions that a company should have to describe how tasks should be performed.
