Early this year, Elmer Perez began his Monday shift at 9 a.m., welding inside a ship at Thoma-Sea Marine Constructors in Houma, Louisiana.
Hours after Perez skipped lunch, his coworkers went looking for the undocumented immigrant from Guatemala. They found him unconscious inside the small space he was working in. The workers removed his body and performed CPR, according to public documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity and the account of a worker who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.
Perez, 20, was pronounced dead before 3 p.m., according to the Grand Caillou Fire Department.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating. The Terrebonne Parish Coroner’s Office declined Public Integrity’s requests to release Perez’s cause of death.
What happened to Perez follows a harrowing trend across the country: Workers are killed every year while performing dangerous jobs inside confined spaces. Some have died because of lack of oxygen, toxic gases like argon and fires, to mention a few causes. In 2022, 44 workers died in confined spaces — a 41% increase from a decade earlier, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The same agency issued a 2020 report showing that 1,030 workers died from occupational injuries involving a confined space from 2011 to 2018.
Conditions can turn deadly, experts say, as workers labor in manholes, tanks, crawl spaces and other small areas.
OSHA has an array of regulations intended to reduce the dangers: informing employees about hazardous conditions, posting warning signs at entryways, providing personal protective equipment and ensuring that rescue plans are available in case of an emergency.
A first responder told Public Integrity in a phone interview that basic safety equipment like tools that can detect deadly gas or emergency equipment to pull workers out quickly were not found near the site of the January 22 accident.
Grand Caillou firefighter Oliver Caleb was among the first to respond to the scene. When he arrived, workers were performing CPR. He told Public Integrity that he asked about the safety equipment and was told they “would have to go grab the air monitoring equipment,” but no further information was provided.
‘Cost of doing business’
OSHA opened a probe into Perez’s death against Thoma-Sea Marine Constructors LLC and G4 Services LLC, the labor broker that hired Perez.
Last year, prior to Perez’s death, OSHA issued a citation and fined Thoma-Sea Marine Constructors $15,625 for failing to cover or guard an opening in the hull while employees were working nearby.
Thoma-Sea Marine Constructors LLC did not respond to multiple requests by Public Integrity for an interview. G4 Services declined to answer questions and directed them to its attorney, who did not respond.
Across the nation, companies have been cited following fatalities in confined spaces in recent years.
In June 2022, two workers died in Arkansas when they climbed into a newly installed sewer manhole for testing. A worker lost consciousness and the second employee tried to rescue the coworker. They both died.
Six months later, OSHA investigators determined the company failed to test oxygen levels in the confined space. The contractor was cited for six serious violations and two willful violations and a proposed $287,150 in penalties, according to OSHA.
And in August 2022, a mechanic entered a propane gas tank in California to spray a valve inside. He died there. Nine months later, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health fined his employer and its successors a combined $272,250 for serious safety violations.
Marcy Goldstein-Gelb is co-executive director for the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, an advocacy group. She said OSHA has found companies willfully violating safety rules after deadly accidents — especially when the investigation finds that a company failed to establish a confined space entry program, necessary to keep workers safe.
Such a program should include air testing, proper ventilation and adequate space to get in and out, Goldstein-Gelb said.
Confined spaces are very common in agriculture like grain bins, silos and manure pits to mention a few.
In 2022, there were 24 fatal and 59 non-fatal confined-space accidents in agriculture, an increase from 2021, she said.
Goldstein-Gelb said that OSHA has comprehensive rules, but the agency doesn’t have enough resources to inspect every workplace with confined spaces. That’s true for other dangers as well.
“It would take OSHA over a hundred years to inspect every business with a confined space,” Goldstein-Gelb said. “As for the penalties for some employers who are willful and negligent, it’s the cost of doing business — so the penalties are not significant enough.”
Mc Nelly Torres, a Public Integrity editor, contributed to this report.