Summary
Police have ruled out foul play in the death of Gursimran Kaur, a 19-year-old Walmart employee found dead in a walk-in bakery oven at a Halifax, Canada, store on October 19.
After interviews, video reviews, and collaboration with labor and medical officials, investigators concluded no one else was involved.
Kaur’s mother, also a Walmart employee, discovered her daughter after a frantic search.
The store remains closed, and the oven is being removed. Workplace safety officials are now leading the investigation.
I can’t imagine discovering my own daughter dead in an oven. I don’t think I’d ever recover.
Lock-out/Tag-out is the same around the world, right?
Supposedly this oven had a (broken) internal release. It also can’t swing closed on its own and needs to be pushed fairly hard to latch closed. And lastly, there is no way to turn it on from the inside; You need to activate it from outside after latching the door.
It was the combination of all three of these things that had people immediately suspecting foul play. Because there’s no way she could have turned it on while alone; Someone else had to have closed her in there and turned it on, and the broken internal release meant she couldn’t escape.
It is the law in this area of the world and is effective.
More like lock-in/bake-in in this case…
(Hope this family sues Walmart for big money)
what were you thinking
That this was reddit
The article is written in such a vague and non committal kind of way that it comes across like it was a suicide or something. Way too passive language
I don’t know about suicide, but there’s this curious bit:
The Nova Scotia Department of Labour, Skills and Immigration also said it issued a stop-work order on Oct. 22 for the Walmart’s bakery and a piece of equipment at the store. The order was lifted on Oct. 28 “after the oven was assessed and determined to have been operating as per the manufacturer’s requirements.”
From previous threads it sounds like these things all have escape mechanisms on the inside, and that would seem to include it. Maybe she had an unrelated medical problem at the worst possible time?
That seems like a horrendous way to commit suicide.
Yeah, that’s about as hardcore as you get. Usually they’re protesting something when they go for a really painful way, though, and it sounds like she was alone.
Maybe if you intentionally ODed on enough drugs to keep yourself completely out, regardless of pain, and were just using the oven to ensure that the job gets done. Even so.
Ah, the Hitler method of suicide. Yeah, that could be.
Edit: Why are you booing me, I’m right!
Hitler took the Luger express on the way out dummy.
But set fire to his bunk first, to finish the job…
This statement from police also kinda sounds like suicide:
https://globalnews.ca/news/10871561/halifax-walmart-death-no-foul-play/
In a Monday update, Halifax Regional Police (HRP) said investigators had met with the family to share the findings, and that the family has asked for privacy.
A police spokesperson declined an on-camera interview on Monday but in a video statement, Const. Martin Cromwell said while the department understands the public’s interest in the case, “there are questions that may never have answers.”
Cromwell also reminded people to be “mindful of the damage public speculation can cause.”
“This woman’s loved ones are grieving,” he said.
I don’t know what Canadian police are like but in the US they often call things suicide just to close cases. I never trust it.
Well, Halifax caps have their issues but they aren’t cartoonishly corrupt.
That’s good to hear
Just before people misunderstand… a lack of foul play means the investigators don’t believe it was an intentional act of murder… but Walmart may still be found guilty of gross-negligance in creating an unsafe work environment.
It just means the punishment is money, not jail. That’s what it really means. Companies can kill people with negligence and pay money. People that kill people with negligence go to jail. And also pay money.
Canada’s labour laws work different than America’s. All workplace deaths are investigated by a provincial worker’s comp and charges are laid under their statutes. Monetary compensation is set by those statutes as well.
Afaik families rarely sue for workplace deaths/injuries, although I’m unsure if it is forbidden under the Workplace Health and Safety Act.
In a statement Monday, the department said: “Now that Halifax Regional Police have concluded their investigation, effective November 18, the Department of Labour, Skills and Immigration has assumed the lead in the ongoing workplace investigation.”
Maybe. Per the article the oven was fine, though, and if nobody else was involved that means you’d expect the door was clear when she went in.
Well that’s fucking horrific.
Walmart walk-in oven
What in the actual fuck?
This sort of thing:
There is still no valid reason to EVER step inside the thing itself, though, so it’s still kinda sketchy.
How do you think grocery stores bake all that food every day?
Wal Mart is a major grocery outlet here in Canada. In Halifax the options are limited since Sobey’s has a chokehold on the market there.
By using multi-shelved ovens that aren’t walk-ins? It’s not like everything in the bakery is cooked at the same temperature.
Or how about at automated bakery warehouses where they ship finished goods to various stores like a lot of other places do?
And when you want to bake batches bigger than a few shelf units, what then?
And what do you think factory bakeries use to bake their goods en masse?
Maybe we’re eating too much bread?
Can’t tell if serious.
I thought it was funny.
Wouldn’t be the first time I died on stage.
Happens to the best of us.
Complete negligence on the store manager’s part was always the obvious reason anyways.
The Nova Scotia Department of Labour, Skills and Immigration also said it issued a stop-work order on Oct. 22 for the Walmart’s bakery and a piece of equipment at the store. The order was lifted on Oct. 28 “after the oven was assessed and determined to have been operating as per the manufacturer’s requirements.”
Doesn’t appear so.
This is in my neighbourhood.
I’m not sure why this was downvoted. That must be especially rough, if you can remember being steps away from where the oven would be a bunch of times, just doing your thing.
They are currently in a massive reno. Pretty sure the ovens were new.
That’s an extra point for it not being a physically trapped-type issue, then.
How’s their bread?
Varies person to person.
It was normal.
