In mid-August, a woman died at a Wells Fargo office in Tempe. On Friday, the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office said what killed her.
At 7 a.m. on August 16, Denise Prudhomme, 60, walked into the Wells Fargo company office near Priest Drive and Washington Street. Records show that she never left.
After four days, on August 20, security found Prudhomme. A statement from the department says that when Tempe police were called to a call about a “subject down,” they confirmed the death but did not say where in the office she was found.
The medical examiner’s report said that Prudhomme died suddenly of a heart attack because his heart muscles were scarred, but it didn’t say what caused the scars.
At first, Tempe cops said they didn’t think there was any foul play, which was in line with what the medical examiner found.
It took 4 days to find Prudhomme
Prudhomme came into the office early on a Friday, but a security guard didn’t find her until the following Tuesday. Her key card didn’t show that she left the building during the four days she was there.
The police confirmed that no reports of missing people were made during that time.
Sources who spoke with a Republic reporter in late August said that Prudhomme worked in a part of the building that wasn’t usually crowded because he worked from home.
“Only Denise was with her team in Tempe.” “This may be one reason why her desk was put in an area of the building with few people, and no one came to check on her for four days,” a statement from a union that represents Wells Fargo workers said.
The Republic heard from a source that security rarely checked between desks while they were patrolling.
Union says Prudhomme’s death ” shines a light on what it means to work at Wells Fargo.”
The Wells Fargo Workers United union, which speaks for Wells Fargo workers, said the company was bad because it said it closely watches how people act at work but didn’t do anything when Prudhomme wasn’t there.
“Wells Fargo uses remote, electronic technologies to track our every move and keystroke, supposedly to see how productive we are. They will fire us if they find out we aren’t using our computers enough, but Denise was at her desk for four days without being seen.” “The contradiction between electronic surveillance and a death that goes unnoticed sheds light on what it’s really like to work at Wells Fargo,” the union said in a statement.
The death of Prudhomme also led to calls for better safety measures that would make workers less stressed.
“The solution is not more monitoring, but ensuring that we are all connected to a supportive work environment instead of warehoused away in a back office,” the union said.
Source: Cause of death released for Tempe worker found dead in her office
