Six people who died on a Colorado dairy farm this summer were exposed to hydrogen sulfide gas, authorities said Thursday.
The Weld County Coroner’s Office drew its conclusions from autopsies and toxicology tests.
the Five men and a teenager are killed On August 20 sent Shock waves through rural communities In and around Keansburg, 35 miles (55 kilometers) northeast of Denver, emergency responders entered a confined space to recover bodies. The authorities immediately expressed concern that the deaths were linked to harmful gases.
The coroner’s findings will take into account an investigation by federal workplace safety and health investigators to determine what happened at the industrial-scale dairy plant, owned by California-based Prospect Ranch, as well as the role of the dairy equipment contractor.
Autopsy reports gave no indication of the circumstances of death, describing only an industrial accident that occurred in a confined space on a dairy farm.
Dairy operators and federal workplace safety authorities have said little about what went wrong.
Confined space hazards on farms and dairies are a well-known and persistent cause of death in agriculture throughout the United States – often from exposure to noxious, odorless and colorless gases, or from suffocation in confined spaces where oxygen has been depleted.
All of those who died in Colorado were Latino, between the ages of 17 and 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 fundraising drives including dancing, haircuts and car washes for the families of the dead. Several local churches organized a memorial gathering at the local fairgrounds in Keansburg in early September, which included the singing of “Amazing Grace.”
“People are in shock. Everyone in the ranching and dairy community knows it’s hard, it’s hard work, and there are accidents,” said the Rev. Thomas Covell, a priest at Catholic churches including Holy Family in Keansburg. “But this is very strange for them, as accidents usually involve one or two people.”
First responders from a rural fire district in Weld County were dispatched around 6 p.m. on August 20 to Prospect Ranch and took their own safety precautions as they entered a confined space.
Alejandro Espinoza Cruz, of Non, was found dead along with his son, 17-year-old Oscar Espinoza Leos, and his second son, 29-year-old Carlos Espinoza Prado, of Evans.
The Espinoza family is related through marriage to a 36-year-old Greeley man who died — Jorge Sanchez Pena, according to Jolene Weiner, Weld County’s chief deputy coroner.
The other two men, Ricardo Gomez Galvan, 40, and Noe Montañez Casañas, 32, lived in Keenesburg. The remains of Montañez Casañas, a veterinarian who was working under a US visa, were returned to the central Mexican state of Hidalgo, according to the Mexican consulate in Denver. It was not immediately possible to reach relatives of the dead.
Silos that store grain and feed are among the deadliest confined spaces on farms, with dangers including gases from livestock feed fermenting and releasing carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide, according to William Field, a professor at Purdue University who compiles annual reports on injuries and deaths.
The next most lethal group of risks is associated with the handling and storage of animal manure, which also includes the risk of harmful gases. When manure decomposes, it releases toxic gases that can replace available oxygen with carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide.
Hydrogen sulfide is a highly toxic gas that is colorless but has a sulfurous odor reminiscent of rotten eggs.
After exposure for some time, people can quickly lose the ability to smell the gas even though it is still present through “olfactory fatigue.” At high concentrations, the ability to smell the gas can be lost immediately, according to OSHA.
Field said proven safety precautions include access to a self-contained breathing apparatus with hypoxia and emergency response planning and training.
“Having an emergency action plan that will eliminate ripple effects, so that if someone falls, someone doesn’t jump out there,” he said, is important.
OSHA can take six months or more to complete an investigation into workplace fatalities and typically focuses on identifying root causes.
OSHA launched inspections and investigations at Prospect Ranch as well as Johnstown, Colo.-based Fiske Electric, whose High Plains Robotics company provided the dairy equipment and employed some of those who died. Prospect Ranch could not immediately be reached for comment, and Fiske Electric did not respond to emails and phone messages.
The progress of the investigation is unclear. Local, regional and Washington, D.C.-based OSHA representatives did not immediately respond to phone calls and emails Thursday. The automated responses said no one could reply because Federal government shutdown.
It is not clear whether the teen, Espinoza Leos, was specifically assigned to dangerous work, although that would not be unusual or prohibited by law. Federal regulations Allows Those 16 or older to do hazardous work in agriculture, while the minimum age is 18 in other industries, under the child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Federal regulations ignore detailed standards for confined space safety in the agricultural sector even when permits are required, said Rene Anthony, an environmental engineer and director of the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health at the University of Iowa.
However, Anthony said all sectors of industry, including agriculture, are required by federal law to keep workplaces free of known hazards that could cause death or serious injury.
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This story has been updated to correct the date of death to August 20 and the spelling of Jolene Weiner’s last name.