OSHA investigates death of Jose Fierros in mushroom facility

A Watsonville man died in an equipment accident in a Monterey mushroom facility on Thursday, Feb. 13. 

Jose Fierros, 62, died in the 3:15 p.m. accident after he allegedly fell into the equipment, according to news reports.

The facility, Monterey Mushrooms Royal Oak Facility, is located at 777 Maher Rd, in Watsonville. 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) plans to continue investigating the incident. 

The mission of OSHA is “to assure the safety and health of America’s workers by setting and enforcing standards; providing training, outreach, and education; establishing partnerships; and encouraging continual process improvement in workplace safety and health.”

According to OSHA, 5,250 workers died in work-related accidents in 2018 with 4,779 of those deaths occurring in private industry.

While Fierros’ death isn’t a construction-related death, it is worth noting that the construction industry has the most deaths each year with one in five workers dying at a construction-related job in 2018. The most common causes of death on the job include falls, being struck by an object, electrocution, and being caught in or between equipment or machinery, etc. 

The 10 most oft-cited OSHA standard violations for 2018:

• Fall protection in the construction industry.
• Hazard communication in general industry.
• General requirements for scaffolding in the construction industry.
• Respiratory protection in general industry.
• Control of hazardous energy in general industry.
• Ladders in the construction industry.
• Industrial trucks in general industry.
• Training requirements in fall protection
• Machinery and machine guarding in general industry.
• Eye and face protection

Certainly it should be noted that work-related deaths have been declining, according to OSHA. In 1970, deaths averaged about 38 a day. In contrast, however, by 2017, that number had shrunk to 14 in a one-day period.