Story missing from my TV: Six Dead at Colorado Dairy

[Kid Berwyn]

Gas exposure at Colorado dairy farm kills 6

by Alex Findijs, Tom Hall
World Socialist Web Site, 22 August, 2025

Six farm workers died in an accident at a dairy farm in Keenesburg, Colorado about 40 miles northeast of Denver. Fire crews responded at 6 p.m. local time Thursday to a “confined space rescue” at a site owned by Prospect Valley Dairy LLC. The site is comprised of a 32,500 square foot milking parlor and several barns spanning over half-a-million square feet. Authorities reportedly responded to reports of unaccounted for people within a confined space at the facility.

This is the latest in a string of industrial disasters in the United States. On August 11, an explosion at the Clairton Coke Works near Pittsburgh killed two steelworkers and injured 10; on Monday, a barge exploded in Baltimore near the Francis Scott Key bridge, which itself had collapsed in a separate incident last year. There also have been high profile deaths in the auto industry, including skilled tradesman Ronald Adams, who was crushed to death in April. A rank-and-file inquiry into Adams’ death has been launched, and a public hearing held on July 27.

In Colorado, “Crews responded and took appropriate precautions to enter the confined space to perform rescue operations,” said Southeast Weld Fire District Chief Tom Beach in a statement on Thursday. “Unfortunately, District personnel recovered six deceased individuals from the space.”

Snip…

A source later gave more details to the website Daily Herd Management, which said the following:

… the disaster began when a contractor was working on an underground manure pit at Prospect Valley Dairy. Throughout the day, workers frequented the area, and as the day concluded, a worker returned to perform additional tasks, potentially involving adjusting a valve. This action inadvertently led to the release of hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas known for its lethality at high concentrations.

Tragically, the worker inside the pit collapsed almost instantly due to the hazardous exposure. In a desperate attempt to rescue him, five others rushed into the pit, disregarding a supervisor’s warnings not to enter the dangerous space.

Among the victims was a 17-year-old high school student from Highland High School in Ault, the son of one of the workers involved in the incident. Dairy Herd Management is told that two farm employees, along with two service representatives were among the deceased, along with two sons of one of the service representatives.

A Gofundme has been set up to help the families of the workers with funeral expenses and other items.

Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/08/23/ijgr-a23.html

Sad when the Trotskyites print more truth in one story than all of Corporate McPravda do in a week.

[TnDem]

1. Hydrogen sulfide is dangerous as hell

Right when I read "farm" and "confined space", I knew it was hydrogen sulfide.

It will kill you deader than 4 o'clock.

[Kid Berwyn]

2. Odd how little mention its danger gets.

Like the dairy — lots of money to set up the place.

Nowhere near enough went toward human safety.

[RandomNumbers]

8. What would you do to ensure safety?

It's quite possible you are correct in your assertion, "Nowhere near enough went toward human safety."

But unless there is a very strict system in place where someone is not allowed to enter an enclosed space without PPE for this type of hazard, how do you get past people who just weren't paying attention in the safety training?

As it is, according to the news story, 5 out of 6 of those who died, died because they ignored a supervisor's warning. (but of course, they aren't alive to dispute that)

Having grown up on a farm and remembering warnings about this stuff (from decades ago), I looked into it.

More here https://www.dairyherd.com/news/business/breaking-devastating-dairy-farm-accident-colorado-kills-six

and here https://www.centerfordairyexcellence.org/farm-safety/

It's not like nobody has done anything about the issue. Perhaps this site didn't do enough. That is why we need OSHA.

[stopdiggin]

9. thanks. finger pointing (particularly without anything to back it up)

isn't going to bring anyone back - OR help to 'improve' conditions and/or deficiency (providing there is such).

The additional great tragedy here - is that it involved multiple family members - which probably contributed to the counter productive, and deadly, efforts at rescue/recovery.

[Kid Berwyn]

13. As a fellow ignoramus, would that Trump's OSHA listened more to you.

Thank you for the detailed explanation.

[TnDem]

16. Too many variables to know

If it was a large farm with a pit, it could have been designed many different ways, needing many different solutions. Solution #1 is don't go into a pit with lots of fresh manure.

I can tell you, from being around hog farms when I was younger, the ammonia alone from a waste pit will take your breath.

[BidenRocks]

20. Don't go in without

Breathing apparatus!

[RandomNumbers]

3. It was probably on local news. There are several articles online about it.

https://news.google.com/search?q=Keenesburg%2C%20Colorado&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

[niyad]

5. It was. That was where I read it.

[generalbetrayus]

23. It was all over the local news in Denver. It also made National news as well. See link below.

https://news.google.com/search?q=Keenesburg%2C%20Colorado&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

[niyad]

4. I read about it that day in local news, which surprised me, since

they usually do such a lousy job.

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Confined Space Incident

These used to be very, very common.
Unfortunately, they still happen.
They clearly weren't following OSHA regs, as the first worker should have been wearing an extraction harness so other workers could pull him out without exposing themselves.
That's common practice in storage tank cleaning & inspection and in underground utility work.
It should be 100% compliance because the cost is negligible. Sadly, it's not close to 100%.

[stopdiggin]

11. thanks. for the more knowledgeable commentary.

almost every industrial site has training and regs regarding .... The difficulty (always and ever) is making people follow them.

[ProfessorGAC]

19. Not Been My Experience

If a company takes safety seriously & provides the safety gear, the employees are happy to protect themselves.
The problem is, despite the regulations & the abundance of cheap safety gear, some companies pay only lip service to EH&S.
In 2025, incidents like this are almost always a company culture deficiency.
I will project that if the company had strict safety policies, that first worker would have donned a harness & a respirator. But, he probably didn't consider it because the company doesn't encourage it, or better yet, demand it.
Every site where I worked, owned by a big company, was committed to it. I've been in a few smaller plants where the penny pinching bled to safety.
I couldn't wait to get out of those places.

[stopdiggin]

21. you are probably 100% about 'culture'

but it really does have to be 'pushed' and insisted upon from management on down.

And my experience has been, too often PPE is regarded as a 'hassle' and a pain in the butt (both donning and wearing) by employees themselves at the floor level. You have to ride them, and insist ...

You and I will agree that in this case ... Sounds like standard practice was to simply not ....

[ProfessorGAC]

33. Different Backgrounds, I Guess

Failure to use proper PPE as dictated by the work instruction was a disciplinary issue.
Up to including termination, even for union employees. It was included right in the CBA. Every contract, every site worldwide, my company & at least a half-dozen customers.
We certainly agree it's a top down thing. It's just that I've seen that if the company shows they're serious, there is little to no resistance in following the rules.

[Cirsium]

27. Blaming the workers

Didn't you say we shouldn't be pointing fingers?

I never saw a problem working on the farm, nor when I worked in the shop, of "making people follow" safety regulations. I often saw management failing to implement safety guidelines or provide proper safety equipment.

[stopdiggin]

31. here you had 5 workers who (according to this source)

disobeyed orders from sup - and ended up dead themselves .... And what to make of that?
I don't know if that's 'pointing fingers' - but it does seem somewhat relevant to the discussion issue?

As for your second point. My experience was decidedly different. (see post #21.) Without prodding and insistence - compliance was routinely pretty lax ...
Granted, not on a dairy farm .... But then too - farming is a notoriously dangerous ....

[malaise]

7. Horrific

What does it say when so many people need GoFundMe accounts to bury their dead?

[stopdiggin]

12. it says agricultural worker ..

[Kid Berwyn]

14. Richest times in human history mean Hard Times for the many.

"The United States exhibits wider disparities of wealth between rich and poor than any other major developed nation." -- Inequality.org

https://inequality.org/facts/wealth-inequality/

The root cause, too, is an under-reported story.

[Melon]

10. Farm accidents are common

These are known dangers. The farms take precautions with augers, silos, waste pits, etc but accidents still happen.

Many farms are family operations. If you’ve been on a farm, you know it’s a mix of modern equipment and stuff your grandfather bought in 1978. Every year gets a hair safer, but you still run an operation with sporadic oversight and also younger family members working.

We have a lot less silo explosions now but every few years one still blows up from dust. Those can also take out a lot of people.

[Kid Berwyn]

17. Six deaths on one farm should be national news.

That way the people who could use the information, say 17-year-old high school students, would know what to do in an emergency.

Seems today's news department have their priorities mixed up, putting profits and advertisers ahead of truth and democracy.

[Melon]

34. It is national news.

I hear about it in Texas. I looked online and it looks to be running everywhere and on the AP, nbc, fox, etc. etc.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

39. I read news report on DU a couple of days ago, so international news, kinda. But surprised it doesn't have bigger impact

[k0rs]

24. I've actually had...

...formal training in entering confined spaces and confined space rescue, or unfortunately what is more often retrieval (as opposed to rescue).

This isn't a small family farm, it's a huge industrial operation. I don't know what policy and requirements they have in place, but they should have a comprehensive safety plan. Perhaps they had a viable plan and this is a case of worker non-compliance. It will come out in the investigation.

What should have been in place, BEFORE the accident was:

1. A formal process to identify confined spaces. Identified spaces are then clearly marked as such. Confined spaces may not be particularly obvious. They may even not have a roof. Heavy toxic gases can collect in such apparently open spots.

2. Worker training to inform the worker of proper procedures for entering these spaces. In this case probably in Spanish as well as English, emphasizing never to follow a collapsed worker into a confined space without proper preparation. "You can't hold your breath." It doesn't work. H2S (Hydrogen Sulfide) can overcome an individual with amazing speed.

3. Proper safety gear to allow entry without personal hazard. This includes breathing equipment, gas analyzers and retrieval equipment. Yeah, it's a hassle to set up, but it's also a hassle for your family to arrange a funeral. A handheld gas analyzer isn't particularly expensive (especially compared to the alternative) and alerts to dangerous gases within seconds.

My employer was in a deep red area and we had many ultra-conservative managers and employees. Yet they were absolutely anal about OSHA compliance and safety training, to their everlasting credit. I spent days rigged with breathing apparatus and retrieval equipment inside confined spaces littered with pipes, tools and other hazards to make training more difficult. It's astonishingly hard to remove a 150lb test dummy from a cluttered, claustrophobic confined space. "Dead weight" takes on a whole new meaning. Imagine how difficult it is to remove a real human without doing further damage his/her body, or your own.

[stopdiggin]

35. thank you! another really good, and informed, post. - -(nt)-

[Midnight Writer]

15. In unrelated news, Trump Administration destroys OSHA and attacks unions that push for safer workplaces.

Republicans don't even want people working all day in extreme heat to get regular water breaks.

[Kid Berwyn]

18. Heard the other day that slavery wasn't that bad, either.

Especially for the ownership class.

[struggle4progress]

22. Hydrogen Sulfide

Hydrogen sulfide is a colorless, flammable gas that smells like rotten eggs at low concentration levels in the air. It is commonly known as sewer gas, stink damp, and manure gas. At high concentration levels, it has a sickening sweet odor. At extremely high levels, a person can lose their ability to smell the gas and become unaware of its presence. This condition, known as olfactory fatigue, can also occur when people have been exposed to hydrogen sulfide for a longer period of time. Hydrogen sulfide is heavier than air, so it can build up in low-lying areas and enclosed spaces ...

https://doh.wa.gov/community-and-environment/contaminants/hydrogen-sulfide

[Kid Berwyn]

44. Heartbreaking. Happens fast, too.

One of the things I saw working in an emergency room were the sight of parents of children who had suffered traumatic injury at home. The fathers and mother often held their hands balled in fists up to their heads, on both temples: "Why did this have to happen?"

It didn't. But accidental injuries to children can happen at the most unexpected times. And they happen to most all parents, me included.

What the Greek poet Agathon observed: "Even the gods cannot undo the past."

[Clouds Passing]

25. The six

[Hornedfrog2000]

26. People pretending to be ice agents,

Assaulting women, home invasions, all at the helm of the lawless pedophile party.

[stopdiggin]

36. your post has virtually nothing to do with the 6 dead in Colorado.

And there are plenty of other posts on this site where it might better fit. Try to find one.

[Kid Berwyn]

43. Understood. Few immigrants or asylum seekers cause harm.

Meanwhile important areas of public safety are left unattended by the orange traitor.

[ananda]

28. Does this mean we don't have an OSHA any more?

Sad.

[k0rs]

37. Not necessarily,

but it might in the long run, especially with you know who at the helm. The current administration likely will see little value in OSHA.

Even at best OSHA doesn't hover over these sites looking for problems or attempting to prevent them. An incident or even tragedy must occur before they get involved.

[TheProle]

29. Have you tried unplugging your tv and plugging it back in?

https://www.google.com/search?q=colorado+dairy+gas+exposure+tv

[Kid Berwyn]

41. Thanks! Reminds me of Benjamin Franklin...

...who observed:

"We're all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid."

[jmowreader]

30. The biggest problem with confined space accidents is human nature

You see your friend keel over inside the confined space and your first reaction is “I gotta get him out of there Right Now!” Not realizing, of course that whatever put him on the ground will do the same thing to you if you go in there with no PPE.

This is a Chemical Safety Board video about this gas…

&t=305s

[Kid Berwyn]

42. Did not know about the dangers from big oil fields.

Thank you for the heads-up on what happened in Odessa. Heartbreaking.

[LiberalArkie]

32. If only the U.S. had a part of government to protect the workers from occupational safety hazards

[k0rs]

38. Yes..

..I understand your sarcasm, but at best OSHA is a "clean up crew" NOT "preventative maintenance."

[NickB79]

40. We just had a plant meeting at work about this incident

Our parent company (Dairy Farmers of America) owns this farm, so it's now the prime example of why we must follow safety rules such as confined space and lockout-tagout policies. And yes, all employees regularly review and train on these policies.

As much as their hearts were in the right place, those 5 employees absolutely disregarded their training running in to help their downed friend as the supervisor told them not to.