Six men were killed in an accident on a dairy farm in a rural town in northeastern Colorado, local authorities said on Thursday.
The men’s bodies were discovered after fire crews were called to a “confined space rescue” at 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday near the farming town of Keenesburg, about 40 miles northeast of Denver, according to a statement from Tom Beach, chief of the Southeast Weld County Fire Protection District.
Officials in Weld County, a large agricultural and oil and gas region, did not release the men’s identities or any more information about where the men had been found or how they had died. Melissa Chesmore, a spokeswoman for the Weld County sheriff, said there was “nothing criminal in nature.”
Officials also did not identify the dairy farm where the accident happened, but property records and Colorado business records indicate it is the Prospect Valley Dairy. The business did not return calls for comment on Thursday.
Farming is one of the deadliest jobs in the United States, and dairies can be especially treacherous for farmworkers. They can be crushed by livestock and machinery, suffocate in grain silos that store feed for livestock, or asphyxiate on gases given off by manure pits.
An official with the Weld County coroner told CBS Colorado that gas exposure could be to blame in the deaths of the six men.
In March 2021, an immigrant farmworker drowned at a different dairy farm in La Salle, Colo., after his truck pitched into a manure-storage lagoon. That led state lawmakers to intensify their efforts to pass farmworker-safety protections.
Keenesburg is a fast-growing town with about 2,000 people, where farmers and ranchers raise beef, chicken and grains for distilleries, said its mayor, Aron Lam. He said most residents work in farming or the oil and gas industry, or commute to the Denver metro area.
“We’re a very close-knit community,” he said. “It’s mostly just farm fields.”
Jack Healy is a Phoenix-based national correspondent for The Times who focuses on the politics and climate of the Southwest. He has worked in Iraq and Afghanistan and is a graduate of the University of Missouri’s journalism school.
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