Four Deaths in Two Years Has Raised Questions About Georgia Postal Center

Postal workers have for years produced the largest share of federal workers’ compensation claims, from dog bites to fall injuries and more. Now, postal workers in Georgia are facing a new concern: The deaths of four employees at a sprawling distribution center outside of Atlanta in the last two years.

The deaths and safety issues at the USPS Palmetto, Georgia, site prompted U.S. Sen. John Ossoff, D-Ga., last month to demand answers on what may be going wrong at the facility.

“Since the Palmetto facility opened, postal workers have continually reported difficulty making calls inside of the facility in the event of emergency situations, poor working conditions, and management struggles,” Ossoff wrote in a June 12 letter to Postmaster General David Steiner.

The senator asked for information on how workplace safety standards at Palmetto compare to other postal facilities and any steps the service has taken to improve safety.

The Postal Service has yet to respond to Ossoff’s letter, the Senator’s office said. Local and national news sites have not reported any recent changes at the center, despite workers’ concerns about tight spaces, poor supervision and “work culture.”

In the latest death, 45-year-old Demarcus Little Sr. experienced a medical emergency and collapsed June 3, but further details have not been disclosed, news outlets reported. The Postal Service could not be reached for comment this week, but said in a news statement after Little’s death that the USPS is saddened by the incident and was offering counseling services to employees.

Russell Scruggs Jr., 44, died in November 2025 after he sustained a cardiac event and fell and hit his head. No defibrillator was available, and a supervisor had not allowed the worker to take a sickness break before he collapsed, one news outlet reported. No medical personnel are on hand at the site and emergency medical crews were reportedly delayed due to lack of cell service from inside the facility.

In June 2025, worker Eric Smith collapsed at the Palmetto center. Other employees were unable to use their cell phones to call for help, a USPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee reported after an investigation.

In 2024, Shannon Barnes suffered a brain aneurysm. Lack of cell service was blamed for a 30-minute delay in EMS crews reaching the victim, WSB-TV and other news sites reported.

It’s not the first time questions have been raised about the safety of workers at the Palmetto sorting center. At a Congressional hearing in 2024, Ossoff asked then-Postmaster Louis DeJoy about the situation.

“He promised to provide my office details on the incident, which we never received,” Ossoff wrote in his letter.

The Palmetto center opened in February 2024 as part of a consolidation plan, designed to make mail delivery more efficient, the service has said. The USPS has repeatedly faced financial losses, systemwide, and the Georgia facility had previously ranked as one of the worst-performing centers for mail delivery times, CBS News noted. The Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General released an audit report last year, citing some problems and some improvements at the facility, along with eight recommendations.

Other postal worker deaths and serious injuries have been reported each year around the country. In Detroit, a worker in 2025 was killed when he fell in into a mail sorting machine. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined the USPS $26,500 after the death, the Detroit News reported. In 2022, OSHA proposed $171,000 in fines after a mechanic at a Greensboro, North Carolina, postal facility had his arm amputated by a machine for which a safety guard had been removed, OSHA explained.

Recent data on U.S. postal worker injuries and claims was not immediately available from the federal Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs.