Woman dies after getting tangled up in baggage claim conveyor belt
A woman got caught in a baggage claim conveyer belt at Chicago O’Hare International Airport and was killed.
The 57-year-old woman was ‘pinned in machinery’ at Terminal 5 around 7.45am on Thursday, said the Chicago Fire Department.
First responders discovered the woman ‘entangled in the conveyer belt system used to move baggage’, said fire officials, according to ABC News.
The woman was pronounced dead at the scene. She was not immediately identified.
She was a member of the public and not an airport employee, a Department of Labor spokesperson said.
CCTV footage showed the woman ‘entering an unoccupied restricted area at 2.27am’, said police.
She was found more than five hours later.
The baggage carousel area was declared a crime scene, with the Chicago Police Department investigating.
Her autopsy will be conducted on Friday by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration told CBS News that it is not investigating the incident because the victim was not an airport worker.
It is the latest bizarre death to happen at a US airport recently.
On New Year’s Day, a man breached a security door at Salt Lake City International Airport and crawled into a plane engine while the aircraft was not running. He was later found unconscious inside the wing-mounted engine. Despite life-saving measures, the man died.
Surveillance footage revealed the chilling last moments of the man, who had missed his flight and then burst through an emergency exit door and climbed into the engine. The video cut out jus before the man entered the engine. He was believed to have suffered a mental health episode.
And in June 2023, a San Antonio International Airport employee was ‘ingested’ into a plane jet engine as it was taxiing to the gate. An investigation into the incident later revealed that it was a suicide.
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