Amazon Employee Injured After Leaping From 12-Story Seattle Headquarters Building
On Monday, an Amazon employee was injured after leaping from a 12-story building at the Amazon Seattle headquarters.
Bloomberg, who first reported the incident, reveals the Amazon employee sent an email to hundreds of co-workers just before leaping off of the 12-story building. According to Business Insider, Seattle police responded to a call regarding an Amazon employee who had attempted suicide around 8:45 a.m. PT.
The injured Amazon employee was transported to the Harborview Medical Center. While the employee survived leaping off of the 12-story building at the Seattle headquarters, the hospital has yet to respond to requests for an update on his current condition.
“Our thoughts are with our colleague as he continues to recover,” Amazon said in a statement.
“He’s receiving some of the best care possible and we will be there to support him throughout the recovery process.”
The identity of the injured Amazon employee, as well as what role he played in the company, has not been made public at this time.
Amazon employee attempts suicide after leaving email note to co-workers and CEO https://t.co/qnTqOoUq7G pic.twitter.com/XVZv1Dm7F8
— TNW (@thenextweb) November 29, 2016
A report by Bloomberg revealed the employee had sent an email to hundreds of Amazon employees – including the CEO Jeff Bezos – before leaping off of the 12-story building at the Seattle headquarters. The employee had also recently put in a request to be transferred to a different department. Instead, the Amazon employee who was injured after leaping off the roof was transferred to an employee improvement plan, which is known to lead to termination in some cases.
Amazon Worker Jumps Off HQ Building In Suicide Attempt https://t.co/wHn9525srS
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 29, 2016
Business Insider goes on to reveal that Amazon declined to make a comment regarding the injured employee’s circumstances with the company before Monday’s incident occurred. In the email the injured Amazon employee sent out, he expressed criticism regarding how the company had handled his request to be transferred. Then, he hinted that he might harm himself.
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According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is ranked as the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. In 2013, there were 41,149 people who talked about taking their life at some point in time during the year. This is a rate of 12.6 per 100,000 people. Anyone who has suicidal thoughts – or knows of someone having suicidal thoughts – is encouraged to call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. The hotline has someone available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to talk to someone.
Per Bloomberg, Amazon has been taking a number of steps in an attempt to soften the image the company has as a difficult employer after a story in the New York Times was published last year that suggested otherwise. In the story, Amazon was portrayed as a grueling place to work, and employees were encouraged to take advantage of other career opportunities if they had them. Amazon disputed the characterization of the company the story portrayed.
According to the New York Times, Amazon employees are “encouraged” to rip apart the ideas of their co-workers during meetings. They are also required to work long hours, which includes receiving emails after midnight and getting text messages in the morning asking why the emails went unanswered. Some employees described the standards they are held to as “unreasonably high.”
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[Featured Image by David McNew/Getty Images]
