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This episode of Swindled may

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contain graphic descriptions or audio

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recordings of disturbing events which may

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not be suitable for all audiences.

3:59

He said, listen to this question as

4:02

it relates.

4:33

The Health and Safety Executive has notified that

4:35

there have been a double fatality at

4:38

Freshly Bakery in Leicester. On

4:41

Saturday the 16th of May 1998,

4:43

I've

4:46

investigated many fatal accidents in my time,

4:49

but I have never investigated an accident quite

4:52

as horrific and tragic as this

4:54

one.

4:56

Harvestime Bakery in Leicester, England,

4:59

mass produced bread products for supermarkets.

5:02

The company used three metal encased,

5:05

tunnel shaped ovens for baking.

5:07

The dough was separated into 10s and placed

5:09

on a 10 foot wide conveyor belt, which

5:12

traveled through the 75 foot long oven

5:15

at a snail's pace.

5:16

The entire process took 17 minutes. The

5:20

conveyor was made up of gridded grills,

5:22

bolted to metal plates. Sometime

5:24

in May 1998, one of those

5:26

grids disconnected from the chain and

5:29

fell to the bottom of one of the ovens. Harvestime's

5:32

chief engineer, Dennis Masters, decided

5:35

it should be removed. The

5:37

ovens manufacturer told Harvestime it would

5:39

take four maintenance specialists and 12

5:42

hours to do the job. The side

5:44

panels of the oven would have to be removed so

5:46

the loose parts could be retrieved.

5:48

Parts and labor were not included. Harvestime

5:51

executives calculated that the company would lose 1120

5:55

pounds stirlings for every hour

5:57

the oven was out of operation. downtime

6:00

plus the cost to the repair just wasn't

6:02

feasible. Apparently, Harvestime

6:05

decided to make the repair in-house. Besides,

6:09

the company was already paying labor costs.

6:12

Ian Erickson, the 47-year-old maintenance

6:14

engineer who worked at Harvestime's Walsall plant,

6:17

had 20 years of experience working on

6:19

all types of bread ovens. Surely,

6:22

he could handle it. And David Mays,

6:24

the boiler man at the Lester plant could

6:26

withstand the elements. The

6:29

43-year-old had filled potholes for a living earlier

6:31

in his life. The company offered the two

6:33

employees extra pay as added

6:35

incentive. The men knew it

6:38

wasn't going to be easy or fun, especially

6:41

as it had been described to them by management. I

6:43

have a challenge in the morning. David Mays

6:45

confided the friends on May 15, 1998. I'm

6:49

going for it. The money is good. Harvestime

6:53

planned to turn off the oven eight hours before

6:55

the repair to allow it time to cool. They

6:58

would set up large fans to blast cold

7:00

air through the heated tunnel to expedite the

7:02

process. The less downtime, the better.

7:05

Instead of removing the side panels as the

7:07

oven's manufacturer had recommended, Harvestime

7:10

removed 10 grills from the conveyor. This

7:12

would create a gap for Erickson and Mays

7:15

to fit underneath the conveyor, allowing

7:17

them to crawl in tandem with the moving belt

7:20

and enter the oven through the front

7:22

hatch, just like a loaf of bread. Along

7:25

their 17-minute journey through the oven, the repairman

7:28

would come across the misplaced part, pick

7:30

it up, and carry it with him through the conveyor

7:33

exit. They had one shot at it. There

7:35

was no way to reverse the conveyor, nor

7:38

could the men stop or risk being

7:40

crushed. On Saturday,

7:42

May 16, 1998, just

7:45

before 11 a.m., Ian Erickson

7:47

and David Mays slipped on thin, protective

7:50

jumpsuits with an Ian Elbow padding handed

7:52

to them at the last second. Erickson

7:54

commented that he wanted to get the job over

7:57

with quickly because he had plans to watch

7:59

the FA Cup final. final with his sons later.

8:02

Let's go.

8:04

Both men were handed radios and took their places

8:06

underneath the conveyor. With the flick

8:08

of a switch, the belt started moving.

8:11

Ian Erikson and David Mays crawled

8:13

with it until they disappeared into the

8:16

oven. Five minutes later,

8:18

panicked yells over the radio were heard

8:20

by these supervisors waiting at the end of the tunnel.

8:23

It's too hot in here, one of the men screamed. Get

8:26

us out. A glance

8:28

at the oven's temperature gauge could have alerted

8:30

everyone at harvest time to the danger. It

8:33

was 100 degrees Celsius, 212

8:36

degrees Fahrenheit, where Ian Erikson

8:38

and David Mays were crawling. Turns

8:41

out the oven had been shut down only two hours

8:43

before the repair, instead of the eight

8:46

as planned and the twelve as recommended by

8:48

the user manual. The oven had been

8:50

in service baking bread all night long. Still,

8:53

no one had bothered to check the gauges before

8:56

sending in the men. Again,

8:58

the only way out of the oven was to complete the

9:01

17-minute crawl to the other end. Halfway

9:03

through, supervisors heard unintelligible

9:06

noise coming from the walkie-talkie. Ian

9:08

Erikson and David Mays had spent almost nine

9:10

minutes in temperatures hot enough to boil water

9:13

and melt plastic radios, evidently.

9:18

Eight minutes later, amazingly,

9:20

Ian Erikson appeared at the exit

9:22

end of the oven. However, the hole

9:25

was too small for an average adult-sized

9:27

human to crawl through. Harvest

9:29

time hadn't bothered to measure. Nearby

9:32

workers rushed to Ian and pried the

9:34

exit hole wider, leaving the severely

9:36

burned worker in the oven for an extra three

9:39

minutes. When they finally pulled him

9:41

free, Ian Erikson's skin was

9:43

bright red and slipping off. He

9:45

had been cooked alive. He collapsed

9:47

seconds later and died on the factory

9:50

floor. David

9:52

Mays, on the other hand, never made it out. He

9:54

lost consciousness in the oven and stopped

9:57

crawling along with the conveyor, becoming entangled

9:59

in the

9:59

machinery.

10:01

It was a horrific tragedy for everyone

10:03

involved.

10:24

An inquiry by the United Kingdom's Health

10:26

and Safety Executive Agency concluded

10:29

that it was a preventable tragedy that never should

10:31

have occurred. It accused Harvest Time

10:33

executives of prioritizing productivity

10:36

and profits over safety and the result

10:38

was a tragic loss of life. It

10:41

is quite often very difficult

10:43

to actually prove a link of evidence

10:46

between directors and senior managers

10:48

within companies to the accident

10:51

or event. However in this case there

10:54

was such negligent that the

10:56

Health and Safety Executive decided that

10:58

there should be charges laid against them because this

11:01

accident

11:01

was totally preventable.

11:04

Harvest Time actually agreed quote

11:07

this was an avoidable accident.

11:10

The company acknowledges it was at fault.

11:12

It failed in its duty to both

11:14

men

11:15

and that has caused untold heartache to

11:17

the families. For this we publicly

11:20

apologize.

11:22

David Wells' parents felt it was too

11:24

little too late.

11:37

Three Harvest Time executives Brian

11:39

Jones, John Bridsen and Dennis Masters

11:42

pleaded guilty to criminal charges. Nobody

11:45

went to jail. All three along

11:47

with Harvest Time the company were fined a

11:49

total of 500,000 pounds and

11:52

publicly condemned for the quote total

11:54

failure of health and safety. No

11:57

level of fine can possibly compensate

11:59

said a... health and safety executive spokesman,

12:02

but we think that the fine reflects the seriousness

12:05

of the offense. Harvest

12:07

Time Bakery became insolvent in 2005 and

12:10

was sold, and I say good.

12:13

Hopefully that'll keep something like this from ever

12:16

happening again.

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12:49

December 23, 2010, just after 9 in the morning. 54-year-old

12:54

Alan Catarol, a father of three, entered

12:57

one of the giant custom-built ovens at

12:59

Piranha moldings to scrape the excess

13:01

plastic that had escaped from a kayak

13:03

mold and dripped onto the floor. Alan

13:06

had performed his tasks numerous times during

13:08

his twelve years as a supervisor on the job,

13:11

but this time would be his last. While

13:14

Alan Catarol was inside the oven, the

13:16

door slammed shut and locked from the outside.

13:19

Mark Francis, a fitter at Piranha, and

13:22

coincidentally, Alan Catarol's future

13:24

son-in-law had returned from the workshop

13:26

with a fixed bearing that had caused the

13:28

initial downtime. Mark turned

13:30

the power back on to test it out. No

13:33

one could hear Alan Catarol's cries for help.

13:36

The custom ovens at Piranha were lined with insulation

13:38

material. There were no windows or alarms

13:41

or means of escape. No formal

13:43

training for the workers. No written manual

13:46

of operation. No training program. Not

13:48

even a warning sign. Alan

13:50

Catarol's body wasn't found until the

13:52

oven belched a foul-smelling smoke.

13:55

It had been baked at 500-plus degrees

13:57

Fahrenheit for over ten minutes. There

14:00

was evidence he tried to use the scraping tool

14:02

to let himself out desperately. Piranha

14:05

was convicted of corporate manslaughter on

14:07

January 2015 and fined 200,000 pounds. The

14:11

company's technical director, Peter Makarith,

14:14

who designed the custom ovens, was found

14:16

guilty of health and safety breaches. He

14:19

was fined 25,000 pounds and given a

14:21

suspended prison sentence. After

14:24

the punishments were handed down, Alan Kettleroll's

14:27

wife, Pearl, who worked at Piranha but

14:29

never returned after her husband's death, released

14:32

a statement on behalf of the family. Quote,

14:35

We are happy with today's verdict, but it

14:37

does not change the fact that Alan is no longer with

14:39

us and his family misses him desperately.

14:43

He had missed the son's wedding and the birth of his

14:45

grandson. He will not see his two daughters

14:47

marry. Alan was a hardworking,

14:50

conscientious man and he gave Piranha

14:52

moldings everything. It hurts

14:54

that they have not admitted any failings in

14:56

their health and safety procedures. It

14:59

didn't matter. The judge did not want to hear

15:02

the company's excuses. You don't need

15:04

me to tell you how far short of your duty

15:06

you fell, bescholded Piranha executives.

15:09

You will have to live with the consequences of your actions

15:11

for the rest of your life. Nothing

15:13

can begin to make up for the loss of this fine

15:15

man. There is no punishment which

15:18

can be imposed that can make up for

15:20

what she has lost. Also,

15:22

the judge added, he could have issued

15:25

a much larger fine if he wanted to. It

15:27

would be appropriate. However, the judge

15:29

said he took the company's financial condition into

15:32

consideration and did not want to put

15:34

it out of business. The company is

15:36

relatively vibrant in profit making

15:38

and a valuable employer in its community

15:41

employing up to 90 people. It

15:43

is essential that it should not be driven into

15:45

liquidation if at all possible.

15:47

Oh, thank

15:48

God. Thank God.

15:57

Bumble

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Bumble Bee Foods, the maker of Bumble

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Bee Tuna, was founded in San Diego,

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16:37

the next every single day.

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The fish arrives at Bumble Bee's Santa Fe Springs,

16:42

California factory, cooked, cleaned,

16:44

and frozen. The tuna is thawed

16:46

and separated into cans, broth

16:48

is added, and the cans are sealed. Then

16:51

they're loaded in the baskets by the thousands, and

16:53

cooked and sterilized with 270 degree

16:56

heat and a retort furnace. Bumble

16:59

Bee's retorts are basically giant, cylinder-shaped

17:02

pressure cookers, about 35 feet

17:04

in length.

17:05

The entire process takes about two hours

17:07

to complete. Powerful magnetic

17:10

elevators then transport the sealed cans

17:12

into large metal baskets. These

17:16

baskets are loaded 12 at a time into

17:18

giant pressure cookers, known as retorts,

17:21

where the fish is cooked and sterilized. Each

17:24

retort can cook up to 12,000 cans at a time.

17:29

On Thursday, October 11, 2012, 62-year-old Jose Molina

17:31

arrived for his 4 a.m. shift at the Bumble

17:33

Bee factory

17:36

in Santa Fe Springs. The supervisor

17:39

instructed him to load one of the 10 retorts.

17:42

Jose navigated the pallet jack to the oven

17:44

and parked it. Jose Molina noticed

17:46

a chain that pulled the cans into the retort

17:48

was snagged, so he went inside

17:50

and adjusted it, as usual. While

17:54

inside the oven, a second employee noticed

17:56

a pallet jack full of cans sitting idle and the

17:59

un-retort was removed.

18:00

He assumed Jose went to the bathroom and

18:02

in a well-hammered act of always

18:05

looking busy, that employee loaded

18:07

the oven with the 12,000 cans of tuna,

18:09

shut the door, and turned it on. This

18:12

is Jose Molina's daughter.

18:14

When that door was shut and

18:17

he saw that, all

18:20

the thoughts that went through his mind is devastating.

18:25

Soon after the door was shut, a Bumblebee

18:27

supervisor asked if anyone had seen Jose

18:29

Molina. Eventually they called for him

18:31

on the intercom, but Jose never appeared.

18:34

His car was still in the parking lot. He

18:37

must be around here somewhere. Two

18:39

hours later, when the sterilization process

18:42

was completed and the oven was opened, Bumblebee

18:45

employees discovered Jose Molina's charred

18:47

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the entire bumblebee foods family is

20:16

saddened by the tragic loss of our colleague

20:18

and our thoughts and prayers are with the Molina family

20:21

bumblebee foods spokesman Pat Minkey said

20:23

in a statement to KTLA the

20:25

company hadn't shared many details about the horrific

20:28

accident not even with the victim's

20:30

family all they came and did

20:32

was notify my mother that he had lost his

20:34

life in an accident and that's it we

20:37

don't have any official report

20:39

one of Jose's six children told the Associated

20:41

Press

20:42

seven months later an investigation

20:45

completed by California's OSHA would

20:47

reveal everything Jose

20:49

Molina was performing maintenance on

20:51

a 35-foot long oven in 2012 a co-worker mistakenly

20:55

thought he was in the bathroom and filled the pressure

20:57

cooker with 12,000 pounds of canned tuna

21:00

and turned it on his body was found

21:02

two hours later after the pressure cooker which

21:05

reached 270 degrees was turned off and

21:08

opened

21:10

bumblebee was issued six serious

21:12

citations by the state's OSHA the

21:14

Safety Administration said the company among

21:17

other errors did not provide an escape

21:19

route or a spotter to keep watch

21:21

with a worker in a confined space

21:23

and for these egregious violations

21:26

bumblebee foods was fined $74,000

21:30

however

21:31

using California OSHA's findings in

21:33

April 2015 the Los Angeles

21:36

District Attorney filed criminal charges

21:38

against the company and two employees bumblebee

21:41

was charged with three counts of willfully

21:43

violating safety rules causing a death

21:46

the company's operations director Angel

21:48

Rodriguez and safety manager Saul

21:51

Flores were charged with the same

21:53

charges tonight after a horrific death in a

21:56

factory the state has filed charges

21:58

against bumblebee tuna

21:59

Walter became trapped in an oven and was

22:02

killed. Now the company

22:04

and its former safety manager and director

22:06

of plant operations are charged with

22:08

three felony counts each of workplace

22:10

violations that led to Melina's death.

22:13

Prosecutors say they willfully violated

22:15

safety rules.

22:18

Bumblebee released a statement after the charges

22:20

were announced. Quote,

22:21

We remain devastated by the loss of our colleague,

22:24

Jose Melina, in the tragic accident

22:26

that occurred at our Santa Fe Springs plant in

22:28

October 2012. Bumblebee

22:31

cooperated fully with Cal OSHA in

22:33

its post-accident investigation which

22:35

found no willful violations related

22:37

to the accident. We disagree

22:39

with and are disappointed by the charges

22:42

filed by the Los Angeles District Attorney's

22:44

Office. We are currently exploring all

22:46

options with respect to those charges and

22:48

will proceed in the manner that best serves the needs

22:50

of the Melina family, our employees, and

22:52

the company.

22:54

Safety has always been and will always

22:56

be a top priority at our facilities.

22:59

Since the 2012 accident, we have

23:01

made our safety program even more robust

23:04

and we remain steadfast in our commitment

23:06

to ensuring the safest possible workplace

23:09

for our employees. On

23:12

August 12, 2015, Bumblebee

23:14

Foods settled for $6 million. It

23:17

was the largest settlement ever in a

23:19

California workplace safety violation involving

23:22

a single victim. However,

23:24

that single victim's family only received

23:26

a quarter of the settlement and

23:28

only $750,000 of the $6 million were penalties and fines. In

23:33

fact, half of the $6 million would be used

23:35

by Bumblebee to modernize its equipment.

23:38

The company was punished by being forced to reinvest

23:41

in itself. Make it make sense.

23:44

A year and a half later, Bumblebee's felony

23:46

charge was reduced to a misdemeanor since

23:49

it had complied with the terms of the settlement agreement.

23:51

The company pleaded guilty. Angel

23:53

Rodriguez and Saul Flores also pleaded

23:56

guilty. They were sentenced to probation,

23:58

community service, and

23:59

safety training.

24:01

You don't have warm blood running in your veins if

24:04

you're not affected by the way this guy died. The

24:06

terrific, said Hoon Chun, assistant

24:08

head deputy district attorney for the

24:11

office's consumer protection division. I

24:13

cannot imagine a worse result of violating

24:15

safety rules than something like this. I

24:18

hope it sends a message that safety rules are not

24:20

a recommendation. They are a legal

24:23

requirement. I'm hoping people will

24:25

realize short-cutting safety rules to make a few

24:27

extra bucks and improve the bottom line

24:30

is not a tolerable equation. Jose

24:33

Molina's daughter hoped for the same.

24:35

Hopefully I mean they do fix all

24:38

these things and not make another

24:40

family go through something so

24:42

horrible.

24:43

After the Molina incident, Bumble

24:45

Bee Foods struggled financially. The

24:48

demand for canned tuna had fallen and

24:50

the cost had risen. Also in 2016, the

24:53

company had to issue a recall of 32,000 cases

24:56

for fear of contamination. Once

24:58

we survived, Bumble Bee attempted to merge with a

25:00

competitor in 2017 but was denied by

25:03

the government. At the same time, a

25:05

wholesale grocery cooperative in New York

25:08

noticed that the price of raw tuna had fallen

25:10

significantly but the cost of canned

25:12

tuna never did. A fix

25:14

was in. Giants retailers

25:17

such as Walmart, Target, and Kroger

25:19

sued Bumble Bee Foods for essentially overcharging

25:22

them for canned tuna. In 2019,

25:25

Bumble Bee Foods filed for bankruptcy and

25:27

was sold to a Taiwan-based company for

25:29

$925 million. The

25:32

company had $650 million in debt

25:34

from various settlements, not to mention

25:36

the tens of millions that had spent on the since

25:38

fees.

25:39

Eating a tuna-heavy diet was more

25:42

expensive than it should have been thanks to this man.

25:44

A grand jury has indicted Bumble Bee Foods

25:46

CEO Christopher Luszewski on

25:49

price-fixing charges. Others

25:51

say he conspired with other people in the industry

25:53

to eliminate competition by fixing the

25:55

price of canned tuna. Two other Bumble

25:58

Bee executives have already pleaded guilty.

25:59

The company agreed to pay a $25 million

26:02

fine.

26:04

In late 2019, Bumblebee's

26:06

longtime CEO, Christopher Lechuski,

26:09

was convicted in U.S. District Court on one

26:11

count of conspiring to fix tuna prices

26:14

between November 2010 to December 2013. Lechuski

26:19

was the only tuna industry executive brought

26:21

to trial by the Department of Justice. Former

26:23

executives at Bumblebee and Stark has testified

26:26

against him. One of the C executives

26:28

received amnesty for cooperating with

26:30

prosecutors. Christopher

26:32

Lechuski was sentenced to three years in

26:35

prison in June 2020.

26:38

This

26:43

window is written, researched, produced,

26:45

and hosted by me, a concerned citizen

26:48

with original music by Trevor Howard, aka

26:50

the former. As always, thank

26:53

you for being a valued listener.

27:08

My name is Jane from

27:10

Melbourne, Australia. My name is

27:12

Jess Midwest from wherever

27:15

the fuck. My name is Tamara from Minnesota

27:17

and I'm a concerned citizen in the United

27:20

States of America.

27:25

The baby is watching.