CHENNAI: In a horrifying incident on Sunday evening at Nokia’s manufacturing facility in Sriperumbudur, a 22-year-old woman died after her neck was crushed inside a machine.
What’s more, technicians refused to switch off even when she was bleeding through her nose and mouth, writhing in pain for over 20 minutes.
On Monday, agitated workers of the cell phone factory gathered at the Apollo hospital premises, where she was brought for treatment.
They accused the management of not taking steps to rectify a “sensor” that had not been working for the past six months, despite their repeated pleas, resulting in Sunday’s accident.
The girl, S Ambiga, was manually pushing “panel boards” (of cell phones) through the uploaders as a sensor was defunct, a colleague said, recalling the accident.
The sensor, however, suddenly got activated and an iron rod moved in when her head was inside the machine, crushing her neck.
The incident took place at 6.50 pm and Ambiga remained trapped till 7.15 pm, he said, as the technicians did not press the emergency button, saying the production process could not be stopped.
After Ambiga was taken to hospital, shift manager Purushothaman told the others to get back to work, saying, “She is alright”, triggering angry retorts from them asking: “‘Will you behave like this if it was one from your family?”
The bleeding girl was taken all the way to Chennai instead of being treated at a nearby hospital, a worker said.
He said by the time some of them alerted her parents and brought them to the hospital at 12.50 am, Ambiga had died.
Hailing from a poor peasant family in Puttithangal village of Vellore district, Ambiga had been working as a line operator for a monthly salary of Rs 8,500. Her parents said their family of five depended on her income.