A 25-year-old man died Tuesday morning after he was found unresponsive inside a large tanker trailer in Eden Lake Township, according to the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies responded just before 9:50 a.m. to a rural property at 23588 County Road 34, where Elder Josue Salgado Gonzalez, of Eden Valley, had reportedly fallen into a 42-foot tanker trailer and was not breathing.
The Sheriff’s Office says the trailer contained about a foot and a half of DAF water—typically used in wastewater treatment—when Gonzalez was discovered.
Authorities say Gonzalez had been cleaning the interior of the trailer with a hose shortly before the incident. Emergency responders pulled him out and began CPR. He was taken to Paynesville Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
The circumstances surrounding the fall and Gonzalez’s cause of death remain under investigation.
