Frito-Lay worker denied medical care, stalked by company agents after being electrocuted on job

An employee of Frito-Lay, an American subsidiary of PepsiCo, says his life has been turned upside down since he was severely electrocuted on the job, became disabled, and was denied medical care.

Brandon Ingram, who served in the United States Navy before joining Frito-Lay, told More Perfect Union in an exclusive interview that his life forever changed when he was electrocuted in 2016 while using a dock door at a company facility.

“From the very next day after the accident, my husband was never the same,” his wife Mellissa told More Perfect Union, which describes itself as “media that empowers the working people.”

“This is the most disturbing Frito-Lay story we’ve covered,” the outlet said in a Tweet.

Frito-Lay denied Brandon any time off after the incident. Returning to work, meanwhile, proved increasingly difficult for Brandon as he had developed kidney disease, linked to severe electric shock, and a disc hernia because of his job, which involved picking cases and unloading trucks.

“They had to remove two of the discs in my neck because they were bulging into my spinal cord. I wasn’t getting enough fluid to my brain,” he said.

A doctor told Brandon that he had to have surgery, otherwise, any small accident or fall would permanently leave him paralyzed from the neck down.

Brandon filed for disability, but the company kept stonewalling, and, in the meantime, he lost his insurance because he was “cut off” from his job.

The real horror, though, came months after the incident when Brandon decided to file a lawsuit against Frito-Lay.

To try to undermine Brandon’s case in court, the company sent agents to stalk and secretly film Brandon and his family as evidence that they were doing well despite their claims to the contrary.

“I never wanted to have a lawsuit, it’s not me,” he said. “But I asked for help and I wasn’t getting it.”

“Billion-dollar corporations like Pepsi, which owns Frito-Lay, they know this is happening to people and they do nothing about it,” Mellissa said.

“My husband should not have had to fight for five years over something that took less than five minutes to impact our entire life,” she added.

Brandon is not the only Frito-Lay employee disillusioned with the company.

Hundreds of Frito-Lay employees in Topeka, Kansas, went on strike early this month to protest what union leaders described as a diminished quality of life stemming from work conditions, including long hours, forced overtime, and stagnating wages.

The striking workers reached an agreement with the company on Saturday on a revised contract.

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