A 41-year-old man died Friday night after falling into a running meat blender at an Oregon plant that had been cited recently for safety violations.
Hugo Avalos-Chanon, of Portland, was cleaning the blender around 11:45 p.m. at the Interstate Meat Distributors plant in Clackamas when the accident happened. Another worker turned on an emergency switch to stop the machinery "but it was too late," reports local news outlet KGW.
The plant had received "serious" violations a few months ago for lax safety precautions regarding some equipment, the station said. A spokeswoman for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said OSHA was investigating both the plant and Avalos-Chanon's employer, DCS Sanitation Management. According to The Oregonian, the same spokesperson said it was "way too early to say" whether the violations and Avalos-Chanon's death were connected.
Darrin Hoy, president of Interstate Meat Distributors, called the death "extremely unfortunate" and said the company is cooperating with investigators, The Oregonian noted. Hoy added that the plant remained open.
"We don't have any additional comment on our tragic loss of life in our facility," he told The Huffington Post on Tuesday.
Avalos-Chanon died from "blunt-force injuries and chopping wounds," the medical examiner said in The Oregonian's report.
A total of 4,693 died on the job in in 2011, the most recent year in a Bureau of Labor census on workplace injuries in the United States.
Industrial hazards have been under increased scrutiny after a fertilizer plant explosion in Texas killed at least 15 people two weeks ago.
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