Mystery after Amazon employee dies on Prime Day at New Jersey warehouse – sparking investigation
AN Amazon employee mysteriously died at one of the company's warehouses during the hectic Prime Day shopping event.
The death occurred at Amazon's EWR9 fulfillment center in Carteret, , on July 12, during the first day of the company's two-day sale.
Read more in The US Sun
OSHA said the investigation could take up to six months to complete.
The incident is among the latest in a series of accidents and fatalities at Amazon fulfillment centers across the country.
WAREHOUSE HORROR
Last December, a tornado ripped through an Amazon distribution center in Edwardsville, Illinois, leaving six workers dead.
The deaths raised concerns about how the company handles emergency responses after being altered about the tornado's path days before.
Two employees who work at nearby facilities said they had been given very little tornado-specific training and were expected to work through tornado warnings.
“We have never had any tornado drills, nor had we sheltered in place for any of the warnings we’ve had in the past,” a female employee who has worked for the past two years at STL8, another Amazon facility about 66 miles west of Edwardsville, told .
She added that during two previous tornado warnings during her overnight shift, she was expected to continue working even when the company sounded alarms.
In September 2019, an Ohio warehouse worker in apparent cardiac arrest was lying on the floor of a warehouse for 20 minutes before anyone noticed, according to a report.
“How can you not see a 6ft 3in man laying on the ground and not help him within 20 minutes? A couple of days before, he put the wrong product in the wrong bin and within two minutes management saw it on camera and came down to talk to him about it,” Edward Foister, the victim's brother, said.
Read More On The Sun
An Amazon worker on the same shift told the outlet: “Bill was on the floor for quite some time and nobody knew that time until cameras were reviewed, but in 20 minutes a worker in a nearby department saw him lying on the floor and then began radio callouts for 911.
"It really is unbelievable how Bill was laying there for 20 minutes and nobody nearby saw until an Amnesty worker with a radio came by.”