Cell Phone Contributes to Freak Accident Death

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Last updated April 12, 2019

A postal employee in the United States has been killed in a freak accident while trying to recover an old cell phone from a drainage ditch. Veteran worker Shelby Wing, who had only just celebrated his 70th birthday this past Sunday and was intending to retire from the job he had held with the US Postal Service for 25 years in two months, drowned after falling into a drainage ditch located behind his workplace while apparently trying to grab a cell phone he had dropped.

“It’s one of those unforeseen freak accidents,” notes Miami-Dade County police Detective Javier Baez. Wing had just come off shift from the Miami Processing and Distribution Center at around midnight and he is believed to have gone outside in order to make a phone call. A co-worker discovered his body around 40 minutes later in the water-filled ditch that runs behind the processing center, which is situated just west of Miami International Airport. He was pronounced dead at the scene. “Apparently he was trying to retrieve his cell phone when he fell in and drowned,” Baez says.

The death has been classified as accidental. Wing spent his whole career at the center, loading packages and operating a mail-sorting machine. “They all said he was an exceptional worker,” comments postal service representative Debra Fetterly. “Always had a nice smile and a kind word for everyone. It’s a great loss for us.”