Authorities released on Friday the names of the six people who died after the leak of liquid nitrogen at a food processing plant in Georgia on Thursday.
The dead, all employees of the Foundation Food Group in Gainesville, were identified as Jose DeJesus Elias-Cabrera, 45; Corey Alan Murphy, 35; Nelly Perez-Rafael, 28; Saulo Suarez-Bernal, 41; Victor Vellez, 38; and Edgar Vera-Garcia, 28, announced the Hall County Sheriff’s Office.
Four of the victims lived in Gainesville, while Murphy and Suarez-Bernal were from the neighboring cities of Clermont and Dawsonville, respectively. Perez-Rafael was the only woman among the victims.
There was no immediate cause of death listed for the six pending autopsies performed by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the sheriff said.
The cause of Thursday’s deadly workplace incident, about 60 miles northeast of Atlanta, is being investigated by the sheriff’s office, the fire department and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, officials said.
Five of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene, officials said. The sixth victim, one of 12 people rushed to the Northeast Georgia Medical Center, died in the hospital.
Four people were still there at noon on Friday, a hospital spokeswoman said. Three were in critical condition and one was classified as regular, according to the official.
Although Foundation Food Group vice president Nicholas Ancrum declined to discuss the cause of the accident in detail on Thursday, he said that “preliminary indications are that a nitrogen line has breached inside the facility”.
Poultry use refrigeration systems that generally include liquid nitrogen, which vaporizes into an odorless gas capable of displacing oxygen when leaked.
Since 2017, OSHA has inspected or investigated complaints involving the Gainesville plant, which is operated by the Foundation Food Group and Prime Pak Foods Inc., the records show.
- OSHA opened a security probe on December 10, 2020 that remains active and the available records do not detail the issues in question.
- A May 26 referral, involving a potential threat of amputation, ended on November 20 without apparent penalties, the records showed.
- Prime Pak agreed to pay $ 3,750 on October 17, 2019, for not providing adequate eye and face protection to workers.
- The company in 2018 agreed to an agreement with OSHA for $ 12,548 on July 6, 2017, an incident in which an employee lost a little finger and ring when “removed the cuber guard to clear a jam and had his left hand pulled out inside, “according to OSHA records.
- Prime Pak was originally fined $ 25,097, but ultimately did not have to pay OSHA for an April 6, 2017 incident, when an employee lost at least three fingers in a meat mixer accident, records show .
A spokesman for the Foundation Food Group could not be reached for comment on Friday.
Newly elected US senator Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., Who courted Latin voters in his frustrating victory earlier this month, promised “to help workers, their families and the Gainesville community to heal.”
“My prayers and condolences go out to the families of those who have lost loved ones and the people who have been harmed today in this terrible incident”, he said in a statement Thursday night.
Suzanne Gamboa contributed.