Firefighters found a dead woman entangled in machinery Thursday in a non-public baggage-processing area at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.
Larry Langford, a spokesperson for the Chicago Fire Department, said firefighters were called to the airport around 7:45 a.m. for a report of a person pinned in machinery used to move baggage. He said they discovered the woman entangled in a conveyer belt system in a baggage room.
Police said she was 57 years old but have not released her name.
The baggage room wasn’t publicly accessible, Langford said, and it’s not clear how she found her way into it. Scott Allen, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Labor, said an official with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration visited the scene and learned the woman was not an airport employee.
Muting! I have done a few safety light curtains before and it is really cool how they can tell the difference between a human and a pallet/part/etc with just lasers. There are some really complex safety scanners out there, such as the area ones, but it is neat.
The thing that would make this easiest is the direction of travel. If everything goes the same way around the belt, not terribly difficult to detect things going the opposite direction.
Main point is there are a lot of easy ways to prevent stupid, but stupid will still try and circumvent it.