An employee at Goodwill in south Sacramento was fatally injured while working on trash compactor duty. The young man suffered a fatal head injury while serving as a “spotter” to ensure that trash bins were properly aligned with the trash compactor.
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health says that it is conducting a full investigation into the incident. Cal-OSHA was first notified of the accident at approximately 2 p.m. on Sept. 30. The man was rushed to the University of California, Davis Medical Center by ambulance for treatment, but doctors were unable to save him.
Goodwill functions as a nonprofit organization that takes donated items, resells them, and uses the proceeds to train disadvantaged and disabled people to find jobs. Because Goodwill handles a lot of donated goods, some locations have giant industrial trash compactors for disposing of unwanted items.
Goodwill headqDuarters posted a notice on its website that one of its team members had been killed in an industrial accident. The notice said that they are shocked and saddened by the tragedy and asked that community members keep the victim’s family in their thoughts and prayers. The notice also said that they are communicating with authorities to determine how the accident happened.
When an immediate family member dies in an on-the-job accident, workers’ compensation benefits could be available to help pay for end of life expenses for their loved one. In some cases, where the worker was a primary contributor to family income, immediate family members may also be able to qualify for death benefits to help them make financial ends meet.
Source: Sacramento Bee, “Sacramento Goodwill worker fatally injured, had trash compactor duty,” Cathy Locke, Sep. 30, 2016
