Woman dies at Aspen
Co-workers blame smoke fumes, but police deny this
A56-YEAR-OLD female lab worker was killed at the Aspen pharmaceutical plant in Wilsonia on Thursday after allegedly inhaling toxic fumes after the premises was engulfed in a mysterious smoke on the day.
Police were quick to say there was no “blast” or “fire”.
Police said the woman, who has not been named, died before the smoke incident, but workers who spoke anonymously to the Saturday Dispatch said the woman had collapsed with breathing problems after being in the thick of the fumes.
East London police spokeswoman W O Hazel Mqala said the plant was shut down and hundreds of workers were evacuated when the smoke broke out shortly after 3pm on Thursday.
Mqala said: “The woman died before the smoke had started and only the paramedics can confirm what killed her. There was however, no explosion, no blast or fire.”
Aspen management steadfastly refused to comment. Two managers referred the Saturday Dispatch to another manager, who did not say much.
Security was tight at the Robbie de Lange Road plant yesterday.
A smartly dressed woman came to the gate with two security officers and told the Dispatch that the plant was closed until Monday due to “yesterday’s incident”.
She refused to give her name and said plant manager Vere Heynsen would be the one to speak to.
In a telephone call, Heynsen declined to comment and referred the Dispatch to manager Grant Swartz, who according to his Linkedin account, is a general manager of the SA Pharmaceutical Finished Dose Form Operations.
Swartz’s landline number, which Heynsen assured the Dispatch would be answered, rang unanswered the entire day yesterday.
An employee at the plant claimed a fire had broken out, trapping two workers.
“The fire broke out with two guys in another room so because the woman [who later died] is a safety officer, she went in and put out the flames and went outside and that is where she experienced breathing problems and died,” he claimed.
An employee said they had been working with volatile methanol.