In a tragic incident, a baker, Zoe Letsiou, aged 49, lost her life when her scarf became entangled in a bread-making machine while she was cleaning it at her bakery in Larissa, Greece. The machine’s rollers caught her scarf, tightening it around her neck as the machine continued to operate. Concerned customers alerted emergency services after noticing her absence from the storefront.
Despite paramedics’ efforts to revive her, Zoe was pronounced dead at the scene. Her brother-in-law revealed that she was cleaning the machine when the accident occurred. An eyewitness confirmed this account, stating that the scarf she was wearing got caught in the machine’s rollers, leading to a fatal strangulation.
The local community in Damasi, near Larissa, expressed their condolences for Zoe’s untimely passing. The tragic incident comes shortly after another workplace fatality, where Paul Clarke, 40, was crushed by a reversing lorry at a pasty-making factory in Callington, Cornwall. Clarke, a new employee at the Cornwall Bakery, was moving strip curtains in the loading bay when the accident happened on December 2, 2021.
CCTV footage captured the moment the lorry struck Clarke, causing fatal injuries. Following an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the owner of the factory was fined for health and safety violations related to the incident. The HSE found that safety risks associated with the strip curtains had not been adequately assessed, leading to the tragic outcome. The lack of a safe work system for moving the curtains during lorry maneuvers was identified as a critical factor in the accident.
