LOS ANGELES -- Bumble Bee Foods and two managers were charged by Los Angeles prosecutors Monday with violating safety regulations in the death of a worker who was cooked in an industrial oven with tons of tuna.

Jose Melena was performing maintenance in a 35-foot-long oven at the company's Santa Fe Springs plant before dawn Oct. 11, 2012, when a co-worker, who mistakenly believed Melena was in the bathroom, filled the pressure cooker with 12,000 pounds of canned tuna and it was turned on.

When a supervisor noticed Melena, 62, was missing, an announcement was made on the intercom and employees searched for him in the facility and parking lot, according to a report by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health. His body was found two hours later after the pressure cooker, which reached a temperature of 270 degrees, was turned off and opened.

The body was severely burned, reports CBS Los Angeles. The oven is used to sterilize cans of tuna, the station says.

Horrible

Wow. That's awful.

This is exactly why a protocol called "Lock Out--Tag Out" was invented.

Not sure I can grasp why it would take 2.5 years to decide to bring the safety violation charges. But yeah, not how a shift should end for anyone.

I finally got used to the taste of Dolphin in my Tuna and now this. Poor guy was pretty steamed about it.

I finally got used to the taste of Dolphin in my Tuna and now this. Poor guy was pretty steamed about it.

At least his name wasn't Charlie.

Always hurts to be canned from your job.

I like a good pun as much as the next guy does but these are not in good taste. Wait! That was not intentional, really.

It looks like two managers at Bumble Bee Foods are being charged with something in relation to this incident. I wonder if the trial (or hearing or whatever) will reveal the fact that the maintenance guy was loaded with mercury because his next task--after doing whatever he was doing in the pressure cooker--was to recharge all the thermometers in the plant.