Family heartbroken after bakery mixer kills woman in freak accident
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Sandy, Utah — (KUTV) Jacqui Lindhardt, 45, was killed in what can only be described as a freak accident at work. She died just after 10 a.m. Wednesday morning at the Reams grocery store on Highland drive in Sandy.
Sandy City Police and OSHA are looking into how and why the woman was pulled into a large bread mixer in the stores bakery.
“I couldn’t believe it. I just kept telling him no you have the wrong person,” Karalina Lym, step daughter of Lindhardt, told KUTV 2 News.
She got a call from Sandy detectives, but told them they must have the wrong number. She’d talked to her step mother not long before she had left for work.
“I seriously feel like she is going to come through the door at any moment.”
Lym is heartbroken knowing her 18-year-old brother, who still lived at home, will grow up without a mother.
“Her life was my brother.”
Police say Lindhardt was mixing dough around 10 a.m. Wednesday when something went terribly wrong.
“Working with a large industrial size mixer -while operating that machine she got caught up with the auger,” said police.
The mixer about two or three feet high and wide — not as big as you’d imagine. Sgt. Dean Carriger says it was strong enough to “ultimately pull her into the mixing vat.”
Police say Lindhart was not alone in the Reams bakery.
“Another employee was working nearby and heard her scream ran over and immediately shut that machine off cutting all the power.”
The machine slowly stopped turning, but It was too late.
At this point in the investigation it’s unclear exactly how Lindhardt got caught up with the auger in the machine.
“But we are speculating that loose clothing may have been a factor.”
OSHA is taking over and will work with Lindhardt’s employer of nearly three years.
“We look into these to see if a safety violation has occurred, and if it has, a citation will be issued.”
Lym’s stepdaughter wants people “to remember her for who she was not for what happened.” She hopes she and her family can do something so this can be prevented in the future.
“I don’t want any other family to go through what we are going through right now.”
Lindhardt loved her job, according to her family. They say she was a self-taught baker and was amazing at making birthday cakes and delicacies from their home country of Uruguay.
The family is disappointed they have not heard from Reams management.
They said it is painful to not have them care enough to call and give their condolences. The family also wishes the grocery store would have been closed out of respect for their loved one.