Woman rescued after falling into waste at #Petaluma poultry processing plant. https://t.co/VXYJ0MH0II pic.twitter.com/CRKee8wrH7
— KRON 4 News (@kron4news) January 12, 2016
An employee of a Bay Area chicken processing plant is recovering today after escaping an awful fate: A horrible death in a tank of poultry "remains."
Bay City News reports that a security guard at Petaluma Poultry Processors was leaning over to adjust an askew metal grate over an 8-foot-deep concrete tank filled with "chicken remnants" at 7:15 a.m. Tuesday when she fell into its disgusting maw.
Though the guard screamed for help, no one came to her aid.
When the woman desperately called 911 “she was waist deep and sinking and didn’t know how deep the tank was,” a Sonoma County dispatcher says.
The dispatcher told her to stash her cell phone and "to hold onto the top of the tank with both arms." And yet, she continued to sink into the fowl foulness, and was already "two feet from the top of the tank" when rescue crews arrived five minutes later, Battalion Chief Jeff Schach says.
Firefighters then managed to extricate the woman, who reportedly pulled her revoltingly soiled clothing from her body on the spot and was wrapped in a blanket.
Petaluma Poultry is the home of "Rocky, the free range chicken" and "Rosie, the original organic chicken," according to its website. It's unclear if Rocky, Rosie, or both were in the tank at the time of the incident.
The woman was transported to Petaluma Valley Hospital "as a precaution," BCN reports, and is expected to make a full recovery. Her appetite for chicken, however, is unlikely to ever return.