Firefighters found a dead woman entangled in machinery in a non-public baggage-processing area at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Thursday.
Larry Langford, a spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department, said firefighters were called to the airport at around 7.45am for a report of a person pinned in machinery used to move baggage.
He said they discovered the woman entangled in a conveyor belt system in a baggage room. The room was not publicly accessible, Langford said.
Police said she was 57 years old but have not released her name.
Scott Allen, a spokesman for the US Department of Labour, said an official with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration visited the scene and learned the woman was not an airport employee. It is not clear how she found her way into the baggage room.
Firefighters turned the scene over to police investigators, and Langford had no more details.
The Chicago Police Department’s communications office said in an email to that the woman was found unresponsive and pronounced dead on the scene. Detectives have opened an investigation, the office said.
The police communications office initially said the woman was discovered at 2.27am, creating confusion about why firefighters and paramedics did not arrive for more than five hours.
After checking with the police department about the timing, Langford said that he was told surveillance footage shows the woman walking in the baggage room at 2.27am.
The communications office issued a second statement on Thursday afternoon saying that surveillance video shows the woman entering the room at 2.27am. She was actually discovered at 7.30am, prompting an emergency call.
The footage only shows her walking and does not show what happened to her.
Police spokesman Nathaniel Blackman clarified during a phone interview that no one was watching the surveillance cameras in real time, and investigators reviewed the footage after the woman’s body was discovered.
