FREMONT — An employee at the Tesla factory in Fremont died early Wednesday while working on a production line, and health and safety officials are looking into the cause of the death.
The worker collapsed while working on the powertrain line at the factory, according to the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA. The agency said Tesla notified state officials of the death.
“Cal/OSHA is gathering more information to determine the work-relatedness of this event and whether to conduct an inspection,” the agency said in an emailed statement Thursday morning.
Around 5:38 a.m. Wednesday, Fremont Fire Department crews responded to a report of a medical emergency at the factory. While firefighters were headed to the factory, the call was upgraded to a rescue, after dispatchers received more information about a man possibly trapped in machinery at the factory, according to Aisha Knowles, a spokesperson for the fire department.
However, the first firefighters to arrive “updated the response to a medical emergency and said there was no machinery involved,” and additional crews responding as part of the call for a rescue were cancelled, Knowles said.
Falck paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene, Knowles said.
The Alameda County Coroner’s Bureau identified the man Friday as Rodrigo Villanueva, 47, of Tracy.
His wife, Alma Villanueva, said Friday that Rodrigo had worked at Tesla for about nine years, and was near the end of his shift on Wednesday when he died. The couple have two kids, she said.
Fremont police spokesperson Lt. Ricardo Cortés on Friday said the police department’s initial investigation into the death does not point to any crime or foul play. The final cause of death will be determined by the coroner’s bureau, he said. The death was first reported by KTVU.
The death comes a little more than a month after 29-year-old Anthony Solima, a Tesla employee, is alleged to have murdered a co-worker outside of the Tesla factory after announcing he was quitting that morning, according to authorities.
Authorities allege that Solima fatally shot 42-year-old Lee Braiser as Braiser was entering his car in the factory parking lot. Police found the suspected murder weapon — an AR-15-style rifle with no serial number — inside Solima’s car, according to court records.Braiser and Solima had argued on the day of the homicide, and not long after, Solima announced he was quitting, authorities said.
Solima left work to retrieve an AR-15-style short-barrel rifle, and returned to the area, where he waited for Braiser to get off of work, according to police reports.
