# Bumble Bee tuna plant worker cooked to death **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 14, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702 "2012-10-14T17:06:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702/41 "2012-10-15T14:06:44Z")
> [@picker](#): > > Mmm, I love drinking bear. šŸ™‚ Doesnā€™t he own a casino? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702/42 "2012-10-15T14:51:34Z")
At least his first name wasnā€™t Charlieā€¦ ---
**Author:** ![Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cornelius_Tuggerson)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702/43 "2012-10-15T15:12:09Z")
> [@picker](#): > > Mmm, I love drinking bear. šŸ™‚ Yeah, nothing like coming home after a long day, cracking open a [bear](http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/I_fadee1_2102823.jpg) and just kicking back for a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702/44 "2012-10-15T15:36:17Z")
> [@Count\_Blucher](#): > > Iā€™m sorry. I just hope they have the good sense not to try to recycle the food into their pet food division. I mean, could you imagine 80 million cats with a taste for human fleshā€¦? > > ā€¦that is SO going to be a SyFi Channel Movieā€¦ filmed in Canadaā€¦ and with Tom Skerritt as the Sheriffā€¦ It will be a remakeā€¦[The Corpse Grinders](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068414/). To my horror, IMDB tells me that two sequels were made. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702/45 "2012-10-15T18:38:13Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Food factories likewise have hazards, as documented since the days of Upton Sinclairā€™s book _The Jungle_. One of the memorable accounts in that book involved unfortunate workers who fell into a vat, and went out into the world as Durhamā€™s Pure Leaf Lard. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702/46 "2012-10-15T18:43:21Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > Thank goodness our comments are only done in jest. :rolleyes: ā€˜ā€˜Good riddance to another filthy illegal immigrantā€™ā€™ is not comparable to making bad puns. Iā€™m pretty sure anyone who posted that in this thread would be rightly pitted. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702/47 "2012-10-15T21:14:53Z")
> [@gotpasswords](#): > > Having seen similar processing facilities on TV shows like _How Itā€™s Made_, Iā€™m guessing he was in a pressurized steam vessel called a retort that operates at about 2500 degrees. Iā€™m hoping that he suffered some other injury such as tripping and hitting his head, had a heart attack, or similar that left him unaware that he was about to be cooked. I cooked tuna one season when I was about 20 years old. I can only imagine Joseā€™s last few minutes. The tuna is cooked twice. The first cook is in a large metal room, ours was about 30 feet by 40. The usually frozen tuna are stacked on racks with wheels on them, like a large bakery rack. They are cooked whole; fins, guts, skin, they have been bled but not otherwise cleaned. The oven loader, which I assume was Joseā€™s job, pushes these racks and parks them in the oven. Itā€™s a big room. Once the oven is loaded the door is closed. Our door was a thick slab of metal about the size of a small garage door. Then the steam is turned on. And itā€™s sounds like Jose was still in the oven. Maybe he had a heath event, or accident. Or maybe someone closed the oven door on him and he couldnā€™t get out. Once the steam valves are opened no one will hear you scream. Probably a lock out/tag out error or procedure. After the first cook is done the oven door is opened, blowers exhaust the steam, and Jose rolls the racks out of the oven and into a room to cool. Once the fish is cool it is sent down the processing conveyor belt and the tuna is cleaned, graded, cat food removed, and packed into cans. The second time the tuna is cooked is after it has been canned. These ovens, or retorts as **gotpasswords** notes, are smaller, tigher pressure cookers that were loaded from the front and the operator doesnā€™t go inside. Of course, my experience may be outdated. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702/48 "2012-10-15T21:36:44Z")
Wowā€¦ Iā€™d be really steamed if something like that happened to me. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702/49 "2012-10-15T21:37:28Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > ā€˜ā€˜Good riddance to another filthy illegal immigrantā€™ā€™ is not comparable to making bad puns. Iā€™m pretty sure anyone who posted that in this thread would be rightly pitted. I suggest you stay out of the comments section of any newspaper. That seems to be a typical response whenever there is a story containing a Spanish sounding name. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702/50 "2012-10-15T22:46:32Z")
ā€œOnce all of the facts are gathered, at that point, a determination will be made if California health and safety regulations were violated,ā€ she said. Iā€™m thinking that once a guy is cooked to death, weā€™ve moved beyond the ā€œif.ā€ ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702/51 "2012-10-15T22:49:06Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I suggest you stay out of the comments section of any newspaper. That seems to be a typical response whenever there is a story containing a Spanish sounding name. A lesson I still havenā€™t learned, unfortunately. My husband makes fun of me for reading comments on newspaper articles. He says Iā€™m trolling _myself._ ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702/52 "2012-10-16T11:13:27Z")
A teeny bit more info in [url=[http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/15/us/california-tuna-plant-death/index.html?hpt=hp\_bn1](http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/15/us/california-tuna-plant-death/index.html?hpt=hp_bn1)]this article. Looks like **Dallas Jones** was pretty much on target, even if it seems the accident occured on the second cooking, not the first. > [@](#): > > Melenaā€™s job involved pushing baskets of sealed cans into a pressure cooker, and he was considered a skilled and knowledgeable employee, Pat Menke, the companyā€™s vice president for human resources, told CNN. The process sterilizes the canned tuna, which is then cooled, dried, labeled and inspected before being shipped to stores, Menke said. Soā€¦ no chance he would have wound up in a can on a supermarket shelf, but still, not a good thing at all. ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702/53 "2012-10-16T12:17:08Z")
Either there is a run of bad luck or large industrial ovens are turning against the human race. Some poor sod in the UK ended up inside an [autoclave at a tire factory](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-19797647). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bumble-bee-tuna-plant-worker-cooked-to-death/637702.md?page=2)