Two workers at a chocolate factory in Pennsylvania had to be rescued from a vat of chocolate Thursday in a scene that could have been ripped from the pages of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
Rescue crews responded to the Mars M&M factory in Elizabethtown at around 2 p.m. local time Thursday afternoon. Lancaster Online reported that more than two dozen emergency personnel arrived at the factory on Brown Street, about 12 miles outside of Hershey. Rescue crews declined to comment at the time, the outlet reported.
“We are actively managing the situation and our primary focus is supporting emergency teams on site,” a spokesperson for Mars Wrigley told CNN Thursday.
The rescue began after two workers fell into a tank of chocolate at the confectionery at around 1:51 p.m., Lancaster County dispatchers said, via Penn Live. The two workers were not hurt, and dispatchers said that the workers were not “floating around in chocolate.” The chocolate in the tank was only about waist-high, but neither of the employees could get out of the tank under their own power.
Fire crews on the scene ruled out pulling them out of the tank directly once they arrived on the scene, Lancaster County 911 communications supervisor Brad Wolfe told CNN while the rescue was ongoing. Instead, rescuers decided to cut a hole in the side of the chocolate tank to get them out. A dispatch supervisor told local ABC affiliate WHTM that the first worker was pulled out of the tank at around 3:10 p.m. The second worker was rescued about 15 minutes later. Assistant Dispatch Supervisor Nick Schoenberger told CNN that both patients were taken to area hospitals. “One patient was transported by ground and one person was transported by helicopter,” he told the outlet.
Initial reports indicated that neither of the two workers were injured. As of the publication of this article, officials have given no updates on the condition of the two workers. Wolfe told CNN that it is still unclear how the two workers fell into the tank. WHTM reported further that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the incident.
A spokesperson for Mars Wrigley confirmed to The Daily Wire that the workers had been successfully rescued. “We can confirm both people have been taken offsite for further evaluation,” the spokesperson said. “We’re extremely grateful for the quick work of the first responders.”
Amidst news that the two employees had been reported safe, social media users joked about the incident, noting that it was a real-life version of Roald Dahl’s world famous children’s book “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” in which greedy German boy Augustus Gloop falls into the factory’s chocolate river while trying to drink from it.