Frito-Lay worker electrocuted, denied medical care & surveilled by company agents

@moreperfectunion

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Why it worked

The video likely resonated due to its powerful emotional storytelling, highlighting a David vs. Goliath narrative where a large corporation allegedly mistreated an injured worker. The personal testimonies, visual evidence of the impact, and the clear injustice presented would have driven engagement and sharing.

Summary

This video details the severe consequences a Frito-Lay worker, Brandon Ingram, faced after an electrocution incident at work. It highlights the company's alleged denial of medical care, surveillance of his family, and the long-term health issues and financial struggles that followed. The video also touches on the emotional toll this has taken on his family.

Structure

1Introduction to the incident and alleged company misconduct
2Brandon's background and his wife's perspective on his work ethic
3Details of the accident and the immediate aftermath
4The struggle for medical care and financial support
5The long-term health consequences and ongoing challenges
6The family's fear and the company's alleged continued surveillance

Product placement

Frito-Lay (company): ACTS - The company is the employer where the incident occurred and is accused of mistreatment. Removing it would change the topic. PepsiCo (company): APPEARS - PepsiCo owns Frito-Lay, mentioned in passing. Removing it would not change the topic.

Original caption

Brandon Ingram was severely electrocuted and nearly died while working at a Frito-Lay factory in Missouri. The company then denied him needed medical care. Brandon, his wife, and children have been stalked and secretly filmed by company agents for years. The new revelations add to a troubling trend of abuse exposed by Frito-Lay workers on strike in Topeka, Kansas. Originally posted July 2021.

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On-screen text

Frito-Lay worker electrocuted, denied medical care & surveilled by company agents MORE PERFECT UNION SUBSCRIBE NOW MELISSA INGRAM Brandon's Wife BRANDON INGRAM Former Frito-Lay Employee ON OCTOBER 2, 2016, BRANDON & MELISSA'S LIVES CHANGED FOREVER FRITO-LAY I was using a dock door. You press the button and it automatically does what it's supposed to do. I got electrocuted. FRITO-LAY I was taken to the ER. but the emergency room they took me to was 45 minutes away. We passed 4 hospitals on the way to the hospital they wanted to take me to. And the reason that is is because they signed a contract with a certain hospital and a certain network. From the very next day after the accident, my husband was never the same. He was working really hard to even just get up onto the side of the bed. Usually he, like, hops out of bed, and he hurries up, puts his clothes on, and he shoves food down his throat, and he's out the door, you know, in 30 minutes. He was used to it. He was trained to do that in the service. When I say I was healthy as an ox, I was healthy as an ox. We just didn't have any answers. They said he should've been fine, but he wasn't. I didn't get any time off after the incident. I had to call off the next day as a sick day. I told y'all I was in pain. I told you it hurts when I walk. And it was like, "Ok." You know, "Are you gonna be here tomorrow?" I was a site lead and I know what that entails. You're leadership of the the the whole warehouse so if you have to fill in, you have to fill in. I asked for some type of relief period because I was still obligated to work— like, picking cases, and unloading trucks, or rotating product on a forklift. I asked for a chair that I could sit in that would make me more comfortable while I'm doing my office work. They denied it. You're either 100% or you can't work. It just felt like they were trying to push me out. Eventually I got an MRI by my primary doctor, and it showed that I had two herniated discs in my back. And he was like, "You shouldn't be doing anything." They could only fix it with surgery. And my husband still had to work this whole entire time. BRANDON NOW HAS LIVER DISEASE, WHICH IS LINKED TO SERIOUS ELECTRIC SHOCK, AS WELL AS A PINCHED NERVE CAUSED BY 2 HERNIA TED DISCS They had to remove two of the discs in my neck because they were bulging into my spinal cord. I wasn't getting enough fluid to my brain. If I didn't have the surgery, the doctor said any small fall, or accident, or something like that and I would have been paralyzed from the neck down, or dead. I still have to have surgery on my lower lumbar spine. From the moment that he couldn't work anymore and needed short-term disability, Frito-Lay abandoned us. I had to file for short-term disability and then long-term disability. Got approved for long-term disability but that was months later. So, no income coming in. That's a picture of the car! We were driving. They require you to go to the doctor so many times, and the doctor has to say that you're in this condition over, and over, and over. But guess what? You don't have any insurance anymore through PepsiCo/Frito-Lay because they cut you off. I had to pay for that out-of-pocket, too. Didn't have the money to do that. So guess what? I borrowed money, or used credit cards, or whatever I could. I even took money out of my kids' piggy bank. We had to take from our children to live. And the doctor knew what was going on, so he was like, "Look, just pay half of what you owe every visit, and we'll just take care of the rest later." MONTHS AFTER THE ACCIDENT, BRANDON SUED FRITO-LAY I never wanted to have a lawsuit. It's just not me. But I did ask for help and I wasn't getting it. FRITO-LAY SECRETLY OBTAINED FOOTAGE OF BRANDON, HIS WIFE, & THEIR CHILDREN TO TRY TO UNDERMINE BRANDON'S COURT CASE Frito-Lay, Pepsi, Sedgwick, whoever, has people following my family. They are stalking us. Just to find something to be like, "Oh, he's ok." FRITO-LAY FOOTAGE OBTAINED VIA COURT FILING Recording my kids playing in the yard, recording me doing yard work. They follow me in traffic on the highway, on streets. They followed me when I gave birth to my baby. They follow me to my daughter's school. I took my daughter out of school and decided to homeschool, because I don't know if we're safe. I don't know how many people they've given our address, and name, and information to just to prove my husband wrong. They've done it for years. Why are you fighting so hard to say that I'm not hurt instead of just— look at the paperwork, look at the medical stuff, look at everything I've been through. You would think that I'm a bad employee the way that everything has went. I've never done anything wrong to this company or even with this company. I have numerous awards to show that I'm not a person that you just throw away. I know the sales side, I know the operations side. I mean, hell, you could have just let me be a lead and just manage instead of physically working. Billion dollar corporations like Pepsi, which owns Frito-Lay, they know this is happening to people and they do nothing about it. My husband shouldn't have to fight for five years over something that took less than five minutes to impact our entire life. He pushed a button at work, a button he can't avoid pushing. He has to push it, it's his job. For a company that talks about diversity, and culture, and a family-oriented business, family don't just throw you out because you get injured. The company makes over $200 billion a year, ok? It's chips. But my husband is worth $0 to them because he's no longer able to push those chips. You are a number. You're a piece of property. I bust my butt for them. Blood, sweat, tears, sacrifices, holidays, birthdays. I missed so much family things because they make you feel like if you don't do what they say, they will let you go. they will let you go. I don't even know where to go from here. Honestly, all the life goals, and marriage goals, and family goals that we had are gone, and I just have to figure out how to survive, and my goal, and hopes, and dreams now is for my husband to get back healthy, and still be alive with us in the future. He dodged bullets in the city of St. Louis growing up. He dodged gangs, he stayed out of all of that. He went to war, he dodged bullets and bombs. He came back to me and now he's been electrocuted at work. We don't know what's gonna happen from day to day. My husband stops breathing at night in his sleep— I have to wake him up at night to make sure he keeps breathing. I have to help with my children who don't understand they can't jump and play with daddy. I mean, I just went from a very fit guy to a guy who is disabled and can barely just handle regular life stuff. I'm 36. I should be able to play with my kids in the yard. I just want my life back. UNION MORE PERFECT UNION BUILDING POWER FOR WORKING PEOPLE SUBSCRIBE WATCH MORE

Transcript

They are stalking us. Recording my kids playing in the yard. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. I tried to hold it in, I'm sorry. HOW FRITO-LAY STOLE A FAMILY'S FUTURE So, I got the job at Frito-Lay in January of 2011. Prior to Frito-Lay, I was in the United States Navy. Leaving the service, he just needed to matter. He needed to belong and have a purpose. We both thought he found that in Frito-Lay, and so we kind of centered our life around it. I worked hard. I bust my butt every day, in and out. Shit, my wife was gonna divorce me because she didn't even think I was at work for real. No, I did not believe my husband just spent twenty hours at work. No one would believe that. He's not a doctor. It's chips. It's chips and dip. I went on a stretch one time of, like, 26 days in a row. ON OCTOBER 2, 2016, BRANDON & MELISSA'S LIVES CHANGED FOREVER I was using a dock door. You press the button and it automatically does what it's supposed to do. I got electrocuted. I was taken to the ER. but the emergency room they took me to was 45 minutes away. We passed 4 hospitals on the way to the hospital they wanted to take me to. And the reason that is is because they signed a contract with a certain hospital and a certain network. From the very next day after the accident, my husband was never the same. He was working really hard to even just get up onto the side of the bed. Usually he, like, hops out of bed, and he hurries up, puts his clothes on, and he shoves food down his throat, and he's out the door, you know, in 30 minutes. He was used to it. He was trained to do that in the service. When I say I was healthy as an ox, I was healthy as an ox. We just didn't have any answers. They said he should've been fine, but he wasn't. I didn't get any time off after the incident. I had to call off the next day as a sick day. I told y'all I was in pain. I told you it hurts when I walk. And it was like, "Ok." You know, "Are you gonna be here tomorrow?" I was a site lead and I know what that entails. You're leadership of the the the whole warehouse so if you have to fill in, you have to fill in. I asked for some type of relief period because I was still obligated to work— like, picking cases, and unloading trucks, or rotating product on a forklift. I asked for a chair that I could sit in that would make me more comfortable while I'm doing my office work. They denied it. You're either 100% or you can't work. It just felt like they were trying to push me out. Eventually I got an MRI by my primary doctor, and it showed that I had two herniated discs in my back. And he was like, "You shouldn't be doing anything." They could only fix it with surgery. And my husband still had to work this whole entire time. BRANDON NOW HAS LIVER DISEASE, WHICH IS LINKED TO SERIOUS ELECTRIC SHOCK, AS WELL AS A PINCHED NERVE CAUSED BY 2 HERNIA TED DISCS They had to remove two of the discs in my neck because they were bulging into my spinal cord. I wasn't getting enough fluid to my brain. If I didn't have the surgery, the doctor said any small fall, or accident, or something like that and I would have been paralyzed from the neck down, or dead. I still have to have surgery on my lower lumbar spine. From the moment that he couldn't work anymore and needed short-term disability, Frito-Lay abandoned us. I had to file for short-term disability and then long-term disability. Got approved for long-term disability but that was months later. So, no income coming in. That's a picture of the car! We were driving. They require you to go to the doctor so many times, and the doctor has to say that you're in this condition over, and over, and over. But guess what? You don't have any insurance anymore through PepsiCo/Frito-Lay because they cut you off. I had to pay for that out-of-pocket, too. Didn't have the money to do that. So guess what? I borrowed money, or used credit cards, or whatever I could. I even took money out of my kids' piggy bank. We had to take from our children to live. And the doctor knew what was going on, so he was like, "Look, just pay half of what you owe every visit, and we'll just take care of the rest later." MONTHS AFTER THE ACCIDENT, BRANDON SUED FRITO-LAY I never wanted to have a lawsuit. It's just not me. But I did ask for help and I wasn't getting it. FRITO-LAY SECRETLY OBTAINED FOOTAGE OF BRANDON, HIS WIFE, & THEIR CHILDREN TO TRY TO UNDERMINE BRANDON'S COURT CASE Frito-Lay, Pepsi, Sedgwick, whoever, has people following my family. They are stalking us. Just to find something to be like, "Oh, he's ok." FRITO-LAY FOOTAGE OBTAINED VIA COURT FILING Recording my kids playing in the yard, recording me doing yard work. They follow me in traffic on the highway, on streets. They followed me when I gave birth to my baby. They follow me to my daughter's school. I took my daughter out of school and decided to homeschool, because I don't know if we're safe. I don't know how many people they've given our address, and name, and information to just to prove my husband wrong. They've done it for years. Why are you fighting so hard to say that I'm not hurt instead of just— look at the paperwork, look at the medical stuff, look at everything I've been through. You would think that I'm a bad employee the way that everything has went. I've never done anything wrong to this company or even with this company. I have numerous awards to show that I'm not a person that you just throw away. I know the sales side, I know the operations side. I mean, hell, you could have just let me be a lead and just manage instead of physically working. Billion dollar corporations like Pepsi, which owns Frito-Lay, they know this is happening to people and they do nothing about it. My husband shouldn't have to fight for five years over something that took less than five minutes to impact our entire life. He pushed a button at work, a button he can't avoid pushing. He has to push it, it's his job. For a company that talks about diversity, and culture, and a family-oriented business, family don't just throw you out because you get injured. The company makes over $200 billion a year, ok? It's chips. But my husband is worth $0 to them because he's no longer able to push those chips. You are a number. You're a piece of property. I bust my butt for them. Blood, sweat, tears, sacrifices, holidays, birthdays. I missed so much family things because they make you feel like if you don't do what they say, they will let you go. they will let you go. I don't even know where to go from here. Honestly, all the life goals, and marriage goals, and family goals that we had are gone, and I just have to figure out how to survive, and my goal, and hopes, and dreams now is for my husband to get back healthy, and still be alive with us in the future. He dodged bullets in the city of St. Louis growing up. He dodged gangs, he stayed out of all of that. He went to war, he dodged bullets and bombs. He came back to me and now he's been electrocuted at work. We don't know what's gonna happen from day to day. My husband stops breathing at night in his sleep— I have to wake him up at night to make sure he keeps breathing. I have to help with my children who don't understand they can't jump and play with daddy. I mean, I just went from a very fit guy to a guy who is disabled and can barely just handle regular life stuff. I'm 36. I should be able to play with my kids in the yard. I just want my life back.