From 2012-2021, there were 47 ammonia leaks at Tyson Foods plants, which led to almost 150 worker injuries, CNN reports today.
From CNN:
Federal worker safety inspections have alleged poor maintenance or a lack of safety training at some Tyson plants where ammonia leaks injured workers. Tyson accounted for almost six in 10 of all ammonia-related injuries reported to the EPA by meat processing facilities – a disproportionate share of injuries compared to the amount of ammonia its plants use. The company’s ammonia injury count far outpaced its largest competitors.
Magaly Licolli, an activist in Arkansas who’s advocated for workers at Tyson and other meatpacking plants, said the leaks are part of a pattern of the company putting “profits over the safety of the workers.”
The report focuses on Mimi Perkins, who worked the graveyard shift at Tyson plant in Hope in 2016. After a pipe weld in the factory ruptured, filling the room where she was working with ammonia gas, she got trapped in the factory for about 40 minutes. She heard a paramedic describe her as “DOA,” and has undergone several throat surgeries and cornea transplants since then.
More from CNN:
Perkins started working at the plant in November 2015, a few months before the accident, as a sanitation worker on the night shift.
Around 3 a.m. on April 23, 2016, the weld on an end cap of a refrigeration pipe containing ammonia burst while Perkins and her fellow workers were cleaning the plant, according to Tyson’s report to the EPA, as well as court and labor filings and witness accounts. Eight workers were injured, including Perkins.
Employees who experienced the leak described a terrifying rush to escape from the white cloud of ammonia gas, which made it hard to see or figure out where to go. Delfort Minor, who said he was saved by a bathroom break right before the leak took place, compared the chaos to an active shooter incident.
“All of the sudden, people come running out of the plant screaming and hollering,” Minor said. “I thought somebody got shot.”
Outside, as workers cried and gasped for air, they realized that Perkins was trapped inside. Eventually, Minor and other witnesses said, a colleague went back in and dragged her out of the building.
Minor, Haynes and another coworker told CNN that they had never been trained about what to do in the event of an ammonia leak before the incident took place, and that there had been no alarm or warning about the release.