Robot Rebellion Kills Engineer

A rogue robot is believed to be responsible for the death of a 57-year-old female engineer working at an auto parts factory in Michigan, USA.

Ms. Wanda Holbrook (left). Photo: Facebook.

A robot at an auto parts factory in the US suddenly rebelled and killed a maintenance technician right at the factory, IndependentToday, an American man filed a lawsuit in court.Michigan State.

In his lawsuit, the husband of Wanda Holbrook, a 57-year-old engineer with 12 years of experience working at the Ventra Ionia Mains plant in Michigan, described the tragedy in which his wife was "trapped under an automated machine and died instantly" in July 2015.

Wanda's husband, William Holbrook, last week filed a lawsuit against five companies that manufactured and installed robots at the factory, including Prodomax, Flex-N-Gate, FANUC, Nachi, and Lincoln Electric, for negligence and design defects, seeking compensation.

According to the lawsuit, the robot suddenly approached Ms. Wanda while she was working in cell 100 of the factory. The cells were separated by safety doors, and the robot technically could not have gotten near Holbrook, but it somehow got through.

"Wanda was working in area 140 or 150 inside cell 100 when the robot in area 130 appeared, taking her by surprise. It hit Wanda and pinned her head in the middle of the assembly line, causing her head to be crushed," the husband said in the lawsuit.

Co-workers discovered the incident and found Wanda's body with severe head trauma. Her death shocked her husband, children, grandchildren and co-workers, according to the Detroit Free Press.

"The robot was supposed to be in area 130, not be allowed in area 140, and not be running the assembly line. A malfunction in the defendants' safety system or equipment occurred, resulting in Ms. Wanda's death," Mr. William's lawsuit alleges.

Deaths caused by robots are rare. The first case occurred in 1979 when a worker died after being struck by a production line robot arm at a Ford plant in Flat Rock, Michigan.

According to VNE