A woman was killed at Chicago O’Hare International Airport after she got caught in a baggage carousel on August 8. The 57-year-old was a member of the general public and not an airport worker.
First responders were called to O’Hare’s Terminal 5 at about 7:45 a.m. on Thursday after they got reports of a woman “pinned in machinery,” the Chicago Fire Department told ABC News. When they arrived at the scene, the woman was found “entangled in the converter belt system used to move baggage. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Surveillance footage of the area from police showed the woman “entering an unoccupied restricted area at 2:27 a.m.” ABC News reports, but she wasn’t found until about 7:30 that same morning.
Here’s more on what happened, from ABC 7 Chicago:
Police confirmed the woman was apparently at the airport overnight, but it remains a mystery why she snuck into the employees-only area.
Authorities said the area where the incident happened is restricted to employee access, and while considered secure, it is not considered a high security area. It is filled with conveyor belts bringing luggage to and from airplanes in the international terminal, which also go through customs inspection.
[…]
Police have not said whether they have been able to track the woman’s activities between 2:30 a.m. and 7:30 a.m.
It’s still unclear where she lived or why she was even at the airport, ABC 7 reports. Now, the area has been declared a crime scene, and the Chicago Police Department is investigating exactly how this awful situation happened.