On Saturday, November 15, just one week after Nick Acker’s death in Detroit, another postal worker died at the Palmetto, Georgia USPS Processing and Distribution center. The family confirmed with the World Socialist Web Site that Russell Scruggs, Jr. is the worker who lost his life. The cause of death has not yet been reported and an investigation is ongoing.
USPS only confirmed with local news 11Alive Monday that a death occurred at the facility. Coworkers told the WSWS that Russell died in the plant when his head hit the ground after falling. The exact cause of his fall remains unclear, but workers raised concerns over the lack of medical emergency protocol and zero cell phone service throughout most of the building, which causes significant delays in their ability to call for help. Russell’s death is not the first such incident at the Palmetto facility. At least two other workers have died in the plant since last year.
She said that Russell “was laying on the floor underneath a machine in a puddle of blood. He had a big gash on his head from hitting the machinery when he fell and there’s blood everywhere. His head was just pouring blood out for a whole 45 minutes and nobody tended to him—they weren’t doing CPR; they hadn’t checked his pulse, they hadn’t tried CPR or to attend to his head wound.
“Some supervisors were standing around him. He wasn’t covered up, nobody was attending to him. We asked, ‘Has anybody checked to see if he’s breathing?’ And they would do nothing. They’re just all standing there.
“They took one of the workers who was there and put her in a room in an office, they wouldn’t let her go see Russell.
