A North Carolina woman is dead after becoming entangled in a conveyer belt baggage carousel at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport this week. And now, authorities are trying to piece together the late-night hours and confusing events that led up to her grisly death.
On Thursday morning, the Chicago Fire Department was called to O’Hare Airport at around 7:45 a.m. local time. There, they received a report of “a woman pinned in machinery,” per the Chicago Tribune and others. When first responders arrived, they discovered an adult woman had indeed been trapped in the luggage conveyer belt system at Terminal 5. Sadly, there was nothing they could do to save the woman; paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.
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At first, the woman was not publicly identified. Airport officials merely told the news media that she had been 57 years old, and she was not an employee of the airport. Then, early on Friday morning, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office opted to release her identity. Per ABC 7 Chicago and others, the deceased woman was identified as Virginia Christine Vinton, and she resided in Waxhaw, North Carolina which is just outside Charlotte.
The Chicago Police Department also confirmed that Vinton had been stuck in the airport overnight while traveling. However, they don’t yet have any answers for why she was in the baggage claim area. And not only that, but the specific luggage conveyer belt in which she became pinned was NOT accessible by the public.
Airport authorities reported to the Tribune and others that Vinton was seen on surveillance video going into an employee-only area just before 2:30 a.m. on Thursday morning — a little more than five hours before her body was discovered and first responders were called. Officials said the area where Vinton was found is restricted to employees only, but it is not considered a high security area. No kidding…
That location is full of conveyer belts that bring luggage in from airplanes that have just landed at O’Hare’s international terminal. Those bags then go through a full customs inspection later on before being released to the public or transferred to connecting flights.
Investigators haven’t disclosed whether they have been able to track Vinton’s activities between her 2:30 a.m. entry into that area and the time she was found after 7:30 a.m. It’s also not year clear exactly when she died, or how long she was in that area before her death.
Such an awful story all around. We send our condolences to Vinton’s family, friends, and loved ones. What a terrible way to go…
[Image via WENN]
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