Has anyone ever died in your store?

There was an associate death in my store roughly 2-3 years ago. Back then, I was a full time stocker in the Pet department and at the time Pets was still a pretty brutal department because a lot of the time you'd get a good twenty or more pallets on the average one truck night. Nowadays Pets is much more under control, and I haven't seen a 20+ pallet night over there in awhile.

In any case, this big biker guy and his girlfriend were hired onto 3rd shift as stockers and this guy was assigned to Pets with me a lot because we were both big, strong guys and could get through the freight easily. I was working my last day of the week and I remember talking to him about tattoos and about smoking, because he had mentioned trying to quit smoking a few times.

I remember telling him that when I tried to quit years ago the way that finally worked for me was to go cold turkey and throw out my cigarettes. I remember specifically telling him that you've gotta take care of your heart and stuff, and that you feel better when you don't smoke. He laughed at me for saying that, and I wouldn't remember that if there hadn't been a sad follow up.

The next night I was off and they had him alone in Pets, so he was doing all the heavy lifting and handling as many pallets as he could, but after taking his first break, while returning through the Grocery entrance, he fell forward onto the floor with a heart attack and died.

I couldn't believe it when I came back to find out that he had died. Some of the people there at the time said that he must have died instantly because his bowels released all over the floor . . . God, what an awful way to die. Whatever happens to me in life, I hope I don't die at Wal-Mart. Ugh.

/r/walmart Thread