What went wrong in Missouri Amazon driver’s death? Former workers call for accountability

A former Amazon delivery driver believes a Kansas City delivery contractor should be shut down after a driver died following a suspected dog attack Monday in Excelsior Springs.

Blake Adolphsen said the company, Three Trails Delivery LLC, one of the driver service partners for an Amazon warehouse in Blue Springs, should face repercussions following the death of a driver whose truck idled for around two hours after delivering a package as he died from a suspected dog attack.

“I think they should be shut down,” Adolphsen said of Three Trails, where he previously worked. “They should be fired by Amazon.”

But he and other former drivers say Amazon should also be held accountable.

Adolphsen said he was surprised to learn the driver’s truck sat idle for around two hours before a neighbor called the sheriff’s office. In his time at Three Trails Delivery from February to June, Adolphsen said drivers were closely monitored through location tracking.

If he stopped to take a smoke break, he said a dispatcher from Three Trails would call to let him know he was behind on his route.

“I was getting calls, text messages as I’m driving from dispatch, asking me why I’m three stops behind on my route,” Adolphsen said. “But he’s laying there dying for two hours, and nothing.”

According to the Ray County Sheriff’s Office, a neighbor called around 7 p.m. Monday to report an Amazon truck that had idled for two hours in front of a home near State Highway O.

There are no reports from authorities of Three Trails or Amazon making emergency calls to alert them that they couldn’t reach the driver. It’s not known whether there were attempts made by either company to reach the driver.

Amazon couldn’t immediately respond to questions from The Star regarding steps taken to check on the driver.

Three Trails also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

When deputies responded, they saw the driver laying in the front yard and were approached by two aggressive dogs, a German Shepherd and a mastiff, as they tried to check on him, said Sheriff Scott Childers. One deputy shot at the mastiff to deter them from attacking without killing them.

Emergency medical crews declared the driver dead at the scene, and when he arrived, Childers said he observed the man had bite marks and other trauma consistent with a dog as well as blood on the dog door. Childers then entered the home and fatally shot both dogs, he said.

The sheriff’s office said Wednesday that an autopsy was performed and both dogs were sent for necropsies. It will take between eight to 16 weeks for officials to determine an official cause of death, the office said.

It’s not yet known whether the dog owners will face charges.

Driver safety concerns

Other former Amazon drivers from other locations have also raised concerns about safety.

Zach Jones, who worked as a delivery driver for different Amazon contractors around Kansas and Missouri for about six years, said it was hard for him to believe the driver received no assistance earlier when locations and progress are watched closely.

“Somebody should have been watching to make sure that this person was not sitting dormant for hours,” he said. “That’s ridiculous because when I was sitting more than 20 minutes, my phone was getting blown up on why wasn’t I moving yet?”

Jones said he was bitten by dogs multiple times while working as a driver in Amazon-marked trucks and as a flex driver using his personal vehicle.

One time, he reported a bite after he went to the emergency room, but he said Amazon never followed up with him or reached out to his insurance company.

Amazon reminds workers to not deliver packages if they feel unsafe, but Jones said drivers can lose out on weekly bonuses by not meeting delivery goals.

The company released a statement Monday, saying, “We’re deeply saddened by tonight’s tragic incident involving a member of our Amazon family and will be providing support to the team and the driver’s loved ones. We are assisting law enforcement in their investigation.”

Lisa Levandowski, a spokesperson for Amazon, said there are safety protocols in place to help drivers feel safe, including an app with driver safety tips for each location that warns drivers of potential hazards like dogs, as well as ongoing training, courses and live support to report incidents or concerns.

A new feature also allows drivers to notify customers when they are approaching their residence, so that they can be reminded to secure pets, turn on lights or clear a path, Levandowski said. If drivers report feeling unsafe at a location or the company believes a location or customer presents a safety risk, Amazon can use alternate locations like drop boxes, she said.

The classes and training that Amazon offers often don’t help drivers, Jones said.

He said they feel more like safety tips made by someone who has never done the job. Now that they’re offered virtually, he also said it’s easy for drivers to ignore the videos and mark them as completed.

Adolphsen said the driver who died had worked as a delivery driver for several years and would have known to look for aggressive dogs and other hazards on properties. While drivers often take the same route, allowing dogs to get to know them, Adolphsen heard from a friend that the driver was filling in on a different route the night he died.

When Adolphsen picked up that same route for another employee months ago, he said he remembers seeing dog toys in the yard where the driver died this week, but no pets out. Then, as he opened the gate, he said they came through the dog door. Adolphsen said he could tell the dogs were aggressive, so he closed the gate and didn’t finish the delivery.

The driver who died, Adolphsen said, also raised concerns about a different safety issue in late May or early June, questioning what employees were supposed to do when truck temperatures were too high. While Amazon sent daily bulletins about high temperatures encouraging drivers to take breaks when needed to cool down, Adolphsen said they continued getting calls for being behind on routes and could miss out on bonuses because of it.

Not long after, at the end of June, Adolphsen said he left his job.

“He was one of the main ones that was trying to say that, and nobody listened,” Adolphsen said. “At the end of the day, the DSPs are third-party contractors, and all they care about at the end of the day is meeting their daily quota of packages delivered.”

Accountability

Hazards like aggressive dogs are unavoidable in delivery jobs, Jones and Adolphsen said, but both believe there needs to be answers and change following the driver’s death, both by the the delivery service provider and by Amazon.

Jones said when safety violations happen, Amazon often hides behind delivery service partners, saying those partners set up bonus programs and work with drivers directly. But he said that if Amazon provides the bonus money and sets the partners up with trucks, driver phones and other equipment and policies, he believes they need to take responsibility when someone is hurt or killed.

“These delivery service providers are small mom-and-pop companies that are barely holding above water anyway,” he said. “When something as big as an insurance liability happens like this, they get hit with all the blame, and Amazon walks away scot-free.”

Adolphsen said Amazon should at least require customers to mark whether or not they have dogs on their property, rather than hoping they’ll add the information as an extra note for drivers.

“I just feel like somebody needs to be held accountable, and at the end of the day it’s not going to fall on Amazon,” he said. “That’s why they hire third-party contractors because when things like this happen, they don’t want it to fall on them.”