A teenage sanitation worker at a California factory making popular frozen burritos was sucked into a meat grinder and killed.
The 19-year-old was cleaning an industrial food processor at Tina’s Burritos factory in Vernon when the machine started up unexpectedly, according to police.
Other employees heard the victim shouting for help and tried to turn off the grinder, but could not get it to stop, said Vernon Police Department Sgt Daniel Onopa.
Officers responded to a call for an injured worker at a kitchen shortly after 9.30pm on Sunday. By the time they got to the scene, the worker had died, Onopa said.
‘Our thoughts are with the family, friends and coworkers affected by this tragedy,’ Onopa told ABC 6.
Fellow workers gathered in a seating section outside the factory after the tragic incident and appeared distraught.
The victim’s identity was not immediately released.
No foul play is suspected and it seemed to be an accident, Onopa said.
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, which works to protect workers in the state, was set to begin investigation on Monday.
Vernon is about five miles south of downtown Los Angeles.
Tina’s Burritos’ website states that it produces ‘America’s Best Single-Serve Frozen Burritos’ and that 694 of them are heated up somewhere in the US every minute.
‘Tina’s began in Los Angeles with a handful of people, a kitchen, and a belief: ”Everyone should be able to afford a great tasting burrito”. That’s never changed. We’ve grown – but not to go corporate,’ states its site.
‘We grew so we could feed more people. You can taste it in every bite. That stubborn simplicity? That’s Tina’s.’
The company has not responded to a request for comment from Metro.
The victim’s death comes just a couple weeks after a 38-year-old factory worker got stuck in an industrial oven at a Gilster-Mary Lee Corporation cereal plant in Perryville, Missouri, and died.
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