Crunchy Frog (Whizzo Chocolate Company) -- Monty Python's Flying Circus
Posted on 07/25/2002 2:57:55 AM PDT by kattracks
A Pennsylvania factory worker has drowned in a 1,200-gallon vat of melted milk chocolate, swallowed up by the gooey, quicksand-like mixture.Yoni Cordon, 19, of Philadelphia, an employee of the Kargher Corp. in Hatfield Township, apparently tumbled from a platform into the 7-foot-deep vat, which is used for mixing and melting chocolate.
But nobody saw the accident, and Cordon couldn't save himself.
"It was like quicksand," said Jim Viscusi, assistant chief of the Volunteer Medical Service Corps of nearby Lansdale, which was first rescue unit on the scene.
"We found the gentleman immersed in the vat. It was not the heat - but [the chocolate] is particularly sticky."
Viscusi said it would have been difficult for anyone to extricate himself from the vat without immediate help.
Co-workers told police that none of them saw the accident, which happened about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
After noticing that Cordon was missing, they began a search and called authorities when it turned up no trace of the man.
Cordon was pronounced dead at the scene by the Montgomery County Coroner's Office.
It was not known how long he had been in the vat.
After the accident, workers gathered outside the one-story factory, but one of them said they had been told by managers not to comment.
Cordon's father, who was brought to the chocolate factory, was too distraught to speak, and company president Douglas Kargher did not return calls for comment.
Police say the accident remained under investigation, with county officials and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration also involved.
The plant, located in an industrial area in Montgomery County 40 miles from Philadelphia, produces chocolate and cocoa products for customers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
I wonder if this exceeds the government allowance for 'extraneous protein' in foodstuffs.
So9
"What did you yell when you fell
into the vat of chocolate?"
"I yelled, 'Fire, fire!!!'"
"Why on earth would you yell 'fire'?"
"You think anybody's gonna come
if I yell, 'Chocolate!!'?"
If he had died getting hit by a forklift, it would not make the news at all. Forklift deaths are only reported nationally when our troops have been deployed to foreign soil and there have been no combatants killed.
We had a similar death in the area a couple of years ago. A 19 year old, son of the company owner, died when he fell into a machine that added sand to cement. He was standing in it when the bottom fell out.
The father was obviously distraught, so much so that he closed the company.
P
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