Kelby Chichester
A family is in mourning after their teenage daughter tragically lost her life in a Walmart walk-in oven.
Nineteen-year-old Gursimran Kaur had moved to Canada three years ago and had been working alongside her mother at a Walmart in Halifax for the past two years. On October 19, her mother made the heartbreaking discovery of Gursimran's remains inside the bakery’s walk-in oven on Mumford Road. A GoFundMe page has been established to support the family during this difficult time.
After searching for her daughter for nearly an hour, Kaur’s mother began to grow concerned and started asking others for help. "She asked around, but everyone brushed her aside thinking that she may be somewhere helping a customer, Walmart is a superstore after all!" the fundraiser said.
When Kaur didn’t answer her phone, her mother’s worry turned to panic, prompting her to reach out to an onsite administrator. Tragically, a few hours later, Kaur’s charred remains were discovered inside the bakery's walk-in oven. It’s also been reported that not a single Walmart employee was present in or near the department during the time when and before Kaur’s body was found.
Police are currently investigating the tragic incident. According to DailyMail.com, the Nova Scotia Department of Labour has issued a "stop work order" affecting both the bakery and a specific piece of Walmart equipment. Although the exact brand of oven hasn't been disclosed, Walmart’s industrial ovens typically feature large doors with handles and are spacious enough for a person to enter.
To shed light on the unsettling incident, both current and former Walmart employees have been sharing insights into the equipment used in the store’s bakery. In one video, TikTok user Chris Breezie describes her experience, noting that the oven she worked with at Walmart could be turned on from the outside and that its door handle was "really hard" to open.
"I don't even know if I would fit in here," she said. "I'm 5 foot 1, medium built. I would have to crouch down to get in." Breezie also pointed out that there was an emergency latch located inside the oven, nor were there any tasks that required a person to enter the oven physically.
She continued the video stating, "I would never be in here, whether I'm cleaning it or not." According to the employee, to lock the oven, "you have to push [the latch] with all your might and pull the handle to the side and lock it in place." She added: "There is no way possible somebody could lock themselves in there."
In her video, Breezie shared her belief that a second person had thrown Kaur into the oven. "Now, somebody could throw me in there and lock me in there, but that's a whole different scenario," she said.
Another employee named Mary backed up the theory. "It doesn't make any sense. This door does not close by itself... It doesn't latch," she said in a separate TikTok Video. "It's designed not to do that. You have to push it, hear the click." In the video, the employee demonstrated how the door operates, highlighting the emergency latch on the side. They explained that if someone pushed the latch, it would release the door.
"I'm not trying to theorize or form a conspiracy, it's just hard to wrap my head around it when Walmart's bakery ovens are so safe to use," Mary said. The video has garnered over 27 million views, prompting a wave of responses from Walmart employees across the country.
Police continue to investigate the young woman's death, and the Walmart will stay closed during the inquiry. Authorities are still working to determine how the girl became trapped in the oven initially.
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