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six people died colorado Dairy farms were exposed to hydrogen sulfide gas this summer, officials said Thursday.
The Weld County Coroner’s Office drew its findings from the autopsy and toxicology tests.
The deaths of five men and a teenager on Aug. 20 sent shock waves through rural communities in and around Keansburg, 35 miles (55 kilometers) to the northeast. denverWhere emergency responders entered a confined space to recover the bodies. Authorities immediately expressed concern that the deaths were linked to the harmful gases.
The coroner’s findings will factor into the investigation by federal workplace safety and health investigators, who will determine what happened at the industrial-scale dairy owned by California-based Prospect Ranch, as well as the role of the dairy equipment contractor.
heavy toll
Dairy operators and federal workplace safety officials have said little about what went wrong.
The dangers of confined spaces on farms and dairies are a well-known and frequent cause of death in agriculture throughout the US – often from exposure to odorless and colorless noxious gases, or from suffocation in confined spaces where oxygen has been exhausted.
All of those who died in Colorado were Latino males, ranging in age from 17 to 50. Four of them, including the teenage high school student, were from the same extended family.
As news of the deaths spread, people in the community organized fundraisers, including dances, haircuts, and car washes to benefit the families of those who died. Several local churches held a memorial service at the local fairgrounds in Keansburg in early September that included the singing of “Amazing Grace”.
,People Are in shock. Everybody in the ranching and dairy community knows it’s hard, hard work and accidents happen,” said the Rev. Thomas Kuffel, pastor of Catholic churches including Holy Family in Keansburg. “But it’s so strange to them, accidents usually involve one or two people.”
international influence
First responders from a rural fire district in Weld County were dispatched to Prospect Ranch around 6 p.m. on October 20 and took their own safety precautions when entering a confined space.
Alejandro Espinoza Cruz, of Nuns, was found dead along with his 17-year-old son, Oscar Espinoza Leos, and another son, 29-year-old Carlos Espinoza Prado of Evans.
According to Weld County Deputy County Coroner Jolene Weimer, Espinoza is related by marriage to another 36-year-old victim of Greely’s – Jorge Sanchez Pena.
The other two men – Ricardo Gomez Galvan, 40, and Noe Montanez Casanas, 32 – lived in Keansburg. The remains of Montanez Casanas, a veterinarian working under a US visa, were repatriated to Central America. Mexican Hidalgo states, according to Miguel Barradas Cerón of the Mexican Consulate in Denver.
confined spaces and gases
Silos that store grain and feed are among the most deadly confined spaces on farms, according to William Field, a Purdue University professor who compiles an annual report on injuries and deaths. Silos that store grain and feed are among the most deadly confined spaces on farms, with dangers that include food poisoning, fermentation and gases that release carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides when fed to cattle.
The next deadliest group of hazards is associated with the handling and storage of animal manure, which also includes hazards from harmful gases. As manure decomposes it releases toxic gases that can replace available oxygen with carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, which are particularly poisonous.
Proven safety precautions include access to self-contained breathing apparatus with low supplies of oxygen and emergency response planning and training, Fields said.
“Having an emergency action plan – that will eliminate cascading effects, so that if someone goes down, no one is going to jump in there” is important, he said.
site inspection
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration may take six months or more to complete investigations of workplace deaths and usually focuses on identifying root causes.
OSHA has initiated an inspection and investigation of Prospect Ranch, with Bakersfield-based ownership. Californiaas well as Johnston, Colorado-based Fiske Electric, whose subsidiary High Plains Robotics services dairy equipment and employed many of the workers who died. The companies have not commented publicly on what caused the deaths.
It is unclear whether the teen was assigned a particularly dangerous task, although this would not be unusual or prohibited by law. Federal regulations allow people 16 and older to perform hazardous work in agriculture, while the minimum age in other industries is 18 under the child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Renee Anthony, an environmental engineer and director of the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health at the University of Iowa, said federal regulations leave detailed standards for confined space safety in agriculture, even where permits are required.
Nevertheless, Anthony said all industry sectors, including agriculture, have an obligation under federal law to keep workplaces free from recognized hazards that can cause death or serious injury.