- A worker believes she was saved from a factory fire by falling into a vat of liquid chocolate.
- Patricia Borges was rescued after nine hours of calling for help, the Associated Press reported.
A worker who was rescued after an hours-long wait in the rubble after a deadly explosion at a chocolate factory in Pennsylvania believes she would have burned to death had she not fallen into a tank of liquid chocolate.
Patricia Borges, a line operator at RM Palmer, was knocked to the floor, and her right arm caught on fire when an explosion blasted through the factory last Friday.
As she ran through fire and debris, Borges fell through the floor into a tank holding liquid chocolate. According to a GoFundMe campaign to help cover her medical bills, the chocolate "extinguished the flames on her arm."
Borges, 50, broke her collarbone and both heels in the fall and spent nine hours screaming for help, according to the Associated Press. After spending hours in a pool of freezing water, she was finally saved when a search-and-rescue team heard her cries in the basement of the factory.
"When I began to burn, I thought it was the end for me," Borges told the Associated Press in an exclusive interview on the nightmarish ordeal.
Seven people were killed in the explosion, and 10 were hospitalized.
A federal investigation is underway — the National Transportation Safety Board has indicated that the cause was likely a natural gas explosion, per the Associated Press.
Speaking from a hospital in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Borges told the news outlet she believed the deaths of her coworkers could have been prevented — as she and other factory workers said they smelled gas 30 minutes before the explosion.
Her superiors at Palmer chose not to evacuate, she said, and she wants justice for colleagues.
The company said in a statement last week, "Everyone at RM Palmer is devastated by the tragic events at one of our West Reading facilities, and we are focused on supporting our employees and their families."