An investigation is underway, but a contractor worker lost his life at SunTrust Park.
The regularly scheduled Tuesday evening game between the Reds and Atlanta Braves is nearly completed as news is breaking about the discovery of a man’s body inside a walk-in freezer on site at SunTrust Park.
BREAKING: Cobb County Police confirm a dead body was found in a freezer at Suntrust Park where the Atlanta Braves play. The deceased person was a third party contractor found by another person who works for that company. It’s under investigation.
— Hayley Mason (@HayleyMasonTV) June 26, 2018
Multiple media outlets are reporting the story at this hour, though identification of the victim is being withheld, subject to the customary notification of his next-of-kin. All we know now is that the deceased is a male and was found by a co-worker.
Reports go on to suggest that foul play has not been ruled out.
The park opened in 2017, and thus all of the equipment installed would have been considered to be ‘modern’ and up to code. A bit of basic research indicates that OSHA regulations require that such freezers must have a working escape mechanism:
"“Employees must be able to open an exit route door from the inside at all times without keys, tools, or special knowledge.”"
It would be reasonable, therefore, to guess at the outset of this investigation that the victim may have been unable to escape due to already being incapacitated in some manner – including having already expired… thus the foul play angle.
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Another Possible Hazard?
There is another possibility noted on that same source. There has been at least one incident of a person succumbing to carbon dioxide poisoning via a freezer, the result of dry ice releasing the gas.
While that’s a shot in the dark, such a cause would seem to be highly unlikely unless the freezer had been disabled while being repaired, for any dry ice present would have to be melting. In any case, there’s no report thus far that the freezer was under maintenance or even if the victim was anything other than a food service employee.
More likely alternate scenarios if the man was not murdered? A slip-and-fall situation or electrocution would be reasonable guesses.
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Cobb County police are handling the investigation.