U.S. man buried under mound of pinto beans dies

DENVER (Reuters) - A 56-year-old man was killed when he was buried under a 20-foot (six-meter) mound of pinto beans at a warehouse in eastern Colorado where he worked, police said.

Raymond Segura Jr. was pronounced dead at the Brush, Colorado, facility of the Kelley Bean Company on Thursday after efforts to reach him alive were unsuccessful, Morgan County Undersheriff Dave Martin said.

"We moved several tons of beans to get to him," Martin said in a telephone interview.

Martin said emergency personnel were summoned to the site at 11:30 a.m. on reports of a worker trapped in a pile of loose pinto beans.

Martin said dozens of rescue workers and even four inmates from the county jail spent an hour digging through a mound of the legumes to get to the trapped worker, but he was dead when crews reached him.

Segura had worked at the warehouse for between 12 and 15 years, Martin said. The cause of the accident, how the victim became trapped and the exact cause of death are under investigation.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Peter Bohan)