Schreiber Foods worker killed in automated palletizer in Carthage

What happened

At about 3:44 p.m. on Tuesday, February 6, 2024, dispatchers in Carthage, Missouri, received a call about a person trapped in a machine at the Schreiber Foods plant at 127 Claxton Avenue. The city’s police chief told the Joplin Globe that the caller said the worker had fallen into an automated palletizing machine and was stuck.

By the time firefighters arrived, he had been removed from the machine. Police said he was unconscious and bleeding heavily. Crews performed CPR, and a police lieutenant told local radio that resuscitation continued for about 30 minutes. The 48-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene before a medical helicopter could reach him.

The system involved

Officials described the equipment as an automated palletizing machine, which stacks finished cases onto pallets. No public source reviewed for this entry identifies the manufacturer, says whether the machine used a robot arm or a conventional layer-forming mechanism, or explains how the worker came to be inside it.

Investigation and response

Carthage police said the scene matched the caller’s account and that they were treating the death as an industrial accident. Schreiber Foods said in a statement that it was devastated by the loss of a coworker, was working with authorities to investigate and had made grief counseling available.

What is not established

How the worker entered or fell into the machine, and whether it was running in automatic mode, has not been explained in the sources reviewed. The findings of any federal OSHA inspection, including citations or penalties, were not verified against OSHA’s own records for this entry.