Tree Trimmer Woodchipper Death One of Four Recent Workplace Deaths

Menlo Park, CA (WorkersCompensation.com) - A Menlo Park tree trimmer died in a wood chipper accident Tuesday, one of four workplace deaths since Sept. 30.

Officials in Menlo Park, California said they were called to the 900 block of tree-lined Peggy Lane to a report that a worker had been injured in a fall. When they arrived Jesus Contreras-Benitez, 47, a resident of Redwood City, was dead.

The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration said in a statement that Contreras-Benitez was an employee of FA Bartlett Tree Expert Company, and was killed when he was pulled into the wood chipper during tree trimming operations.

"We all feel sick and sad," Peggy Lane resident Lisa Mitchell told KGO-TV. "We're really sad. We're trying to imagine what the poor family and their fellow workers are feeling. And it's just, it's a lot. We just feel terrible."

The company did not release a statement. Cal/OSHA said it will investigate and that it has six months in order to complete the investigation and issue citations if health and safety violations are found.

In Pennsylvania, OSHA is investigating a workplace accident at Sam's Club in Summit Township after an employee died.

According to the Erie County Coroner Lyell Cook, Benjamin Knight, Jr., 20, died Oct. 12. Cook had worked at the Sam's Club on Peach Street in Summit Township. On Sept. 30, Knight was working at the store around 8 p.m. when he was struck by an overhead garage door after a spring snapped, Cook said.

Cook said Knight died Tuesday of complications from blunt force trauma, and ruled Knight's death as accidental.

"Mr. Knight was a valued member of our family at club 6675, and we are mourning his loss. This matter has been reported to the appropriate authorities," a spokeswoman for Sam's Club said in a statement.

OSHA in Massachusetts recently fined a Florida-based cannabis worker into the death of an employee who allegedly died from inhaling cannabis dust.

Officials said an employee in a Massachusetts cannabis production facility died earlier this year from inhaling cannabis dust at work. OSHA has fined the company, Trulieve out of Florida, a total of $35,000 for three violations it termed serious - creating and maintaining a hazardous materials plan, keeping a safety data sheets on hazardous chemicals and providing training on how to handle those chemicals.

Officials said the employee died while producing pre-rolled joints at a Trulieve marijuana production site in Holyoke, Mass. Investigators found the employee was grinding cannabis flowers to be packaged into pre-rolled joints when she "said she couldn't breathe." OSHA investigators determined that the employee was killed due by breathing in ground cannabis dust. The report also said that the inhaled dust contained keif, a version of marijuana that contains cannabis trichomes, the glands that produce THC and other active components of the plant.

The employee was identified as Lorna McMurrey, 27, on a podcast by The Young Jurks. Other employees on the podcast alleged mismanagement by Trulieve.

“Lorna McMurrey tragically passed away while processing keif in Trulieve’s Holyoke, MA manufacturing facility,” a former employee said. “I had quit about a month prior to her passing due to the horrific management and corruption that I witnessed daily as a supervisor within the facility. I wish that I had been there to save her. Please look out for your people. Please educate yourselves.”

Drew Weisse, an organizer with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1459, said workers in the cannabis industry face a variety of workplace hazards.

“You’re doing farm work in a factory, so you have the health hazards associated with both farm and factory settings,” Weisse told High Times.

And in Prince George County, Virginia, a Perdue employee is dead after a forklift accident.

Officials said a Perdue Farms employee died at the chicken processing facility on Sept. 30. According to the Prince George County Police Department, a maintenance worker was working on a lift used to put pallets on a conveyor with the lift fell on him. The worker was pronounced dead at the scene.

“We’re deeply saddened by the accidental death of one of our associates at our distribution center in Prince George, Va., and offer our deepest sympathies to his family, friends and co-workers,” said a spokesperson for the company. “We are in full cooperation with local authorities and their investigation of the incident.”

The same facility had another death in May 2021. In that incident, an employee, Euguene Fuller Jr., was working on a forklift when an object fell on him while he was working. It was not clear from reports if he was on the forklift at the time. Fuller was taken to a nearby hospital where he later died.

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