A 56-year-old man died at the Chatham Village Foods warehouse at 20 Kendrick Road in Wareham's industrial park on Wednesday after he became pinned by a tractor-trailer behind a loading dock, according to authorities. First responders arrived to find him with what appeared to be life-threatening injuries, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. His identity has not yet been released, pending notification of next of kin.
Wareham Police received a 911 call reporting an injured worker at the facility, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said, according to 1420 WBSM, which first reported on the fatality. Wareham Police are investigating the incident alongside Massachusetts State Police detectives assigned to the Plymouth County District Attorney's Office.
State Police Specialty Units Join the Probe
Multiple specialized State Police units are assisting the joint investigation, per the same report. The MSP Crime Scene Section and the MSP Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section have been called in to examine the loading dock area, while the MSP Commercial Motor Vehicle Enforcement Section is reviewing the tractor-trailer involved.
A Warehouse With a Notable Safety Record
The Wareham facility had earned a rare distinction from federal regulators before Wednesday's fatality. In November 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor recognized Chatham Village Foods' Wareham plant with a Voluntary Protection Programs Star designation, OSHA's highest honor for workplace safety programs, at a facility that employed roughly 200 workers.
Chatham Village Foods operates as a subsidiary of Ohio-based food manufacturer The Marzetti Company, which acquired the crouton brand in 1997. The company traces its roots to 1980, when Cape Cod Potato Chips founders Stephen and Lynn Bernard began making croutons from leftover sandwich shop bread before manufacturing moved to the Wareham Industrial Park, according to HappyCapeCod.
Loading Docks Rank Among the Deadliest Industrial Zones
Federal rules require that highway truck brakes be set and wheel chocks or mechanical restraints placed under rear wheels to prevent trucks from rolling or separating during loading dock operations, per OSHA standard 29 CFR 1910.178(k)(1). Loading docks account for roughly 25% of all industrial facility workplace accidents nationwide, with pinning and crushing incidents between trucks and dock walls among the deadliest scenarios, according to Safeopedia.
Nationally, 756 U.S. workers were killed in contact incidents in 2024, including 213 who were struck, caught or compressed by powered equipment or vehicles, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures cited by Arnold & Itkin LLP. Federal OSHA safety logs recorded 17 fatal loading dock accidents nationwide in 2024, per DockStar Industrial.
How the State Tracks Workplace Deaths
In Massachusetts, workplace fatalities are formally monitored through the Department of Public Health's Occupational Health Surveillance Program, which coordinates with federal agencies under the Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation project, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. The Wareham Industrial Park off Route 25 and Interstate 195 serves as a major regional hub for manufacturing and warehousing serving Greater Boston and Rhode Island, per FUN 107, and the crouton plant bakes around the clock, six days a week, generating continuous tractor-trailer traffic through the site.
