A work accident that claimed the life of a 57-year-old father of a family on January 4th at an American company in Arizona (western United States), reports the GoFundMe platform where a fundraiser has been launched to financially support his family.

The incident occurred on January 4th at Gowan Milling LLC in Yuma, Arizona. José Fernando Partida, 57, was cleaning the inside of a chemical mixing tank when he became trapped inside for over five hours. Worse still, the mechanism restarted when a second employee entered to try and rescue him. This second employee managed to escape unharmed, unlike José.

Local firefighters, who arrived quickly on the scene, managed to shut off the machine's power supply but clearly had great difficulty extracting the worker trapped in the dangerous tank, a delicate operation that took them more than five hours. When he was finally freed, José was suffering from multiple fractures to his ribs and limbs. He was rushed to the hospital but succumbed to his injuries six days later, on January 10th.

He leaves behind a wife and their two children. A fundraising campaign was launched by one of his relatives on the GoFundMe platform to financially support the bereaved family. It had raised nearly $12,000 (over €10,000) by 9:30 a.m.

The company announced the launch of an internal investigation, in addition to the one conducted by Yuma County. It is unclear at this stage whether management accepts responsibility in this matter or how much it may have to pay to compensate the family. The investigation's findings will not be available for several months.