Police: Bakery worker Mahamadou Dansogo found dead in freezer in Brooklyn
NEW YORK -- A bakery worker was found dead inside a freezer in Brooklyn on Thursday and investigators are trying to figure out how he got there.
It happened in East Flatbush.
CBS2's Dave Carlin reports on what went wrong.
Mahamadou Dansogo, 33, died in what appears to be a freak freezer accident while working the overnight shift at Beigel's bakery's main facility on Avenue D in East Flatbush.
He was cleaning a machine inside one of the walk-in freezers when police say he became trapped for at least five hours overnight. Investigators say he was discovered dead by coworkers around 8:45 a.m.
The father of five recently moved to Bedford-Stuyvesant from the Republic of Mali.
"Just came to the United States. He tried to, like everybody, come to United States and find a better life but it died today this morning,": said his uncle Tidiame Wague.
Dansogos family members say he was inside the freezer working in a large piece of equipment when that machine may have turned on, and he somehow became trapped by the machine.
"The machine got him and so that's why he died," Wague said.
"There should be at least a thing on the inside, so the guy can get out like a car trunk. Do you know, car trunks have a thing," said delivery truck driver Jahmell Clemons.
Officials with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration were at the bakery facility. They have not publicly commented.
A statement from Beigel's Bakery manager David Greenberger said "grief counselors are on the site to provide counseling and support to the family and to our employees."
A crowbar device was carried out of the facility and placed in an evidence bag, supporting perhaps the family's account that Dansogo had been stuck in the machinery and it took effort to free the body from it.
Police say the investigation into Dansogo's death is ongoing.