FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 Emergency crews are searching for a missing employee at the National Raisin Company in Fowler after a reported fall into an industrial water digester Thursday.<\/p>\n
Fowler police say they were called out around 2:30 p.m. after Juan Patino, an employee at the facility, was reported missing.<\/p>\n
Investigators say Patino was last seen around 1:10 p.m. in the treatment area, where he was actively pumping rainwater off a tarp. <\/p>\n
That was his last known location.<\/p>\n
When employees later conducted a search of the plant, they discovered Patino had not logged out for the day, his work vehicle had not moved and his hard hat was still on site.<\/p>\n
Officials also noted a tear in the canvas cover of an industrial water digester located at the facility.<\/p>\n
At this time, authorities are treating the case as a missing person investigation.<\/p>\n
Fire crews, a technical rescue team, and the Fresno County Sheriff\u2019s Office have all responded to the scene. <\/p>\n
Officials say it contains highly caustic chemicals and requires specialized commercial divers. <\/p>\n
A specialized dive team from Utah is on the way to assist in the search. <\/p>\n
Officials say the team has previously worked at the facility. <\/p>\n
They’re expected to arrive in about 10 hours. <\/p>\n
Patino is described as 6 feet tall, about 230 pounds, and was last seen wearing a light blue work shirt, blue jeans, and brown work boots.<\/p>\n
The CEO of National Raisin Company has notified his family.<\/p>\n
Authorities say an update is not expected until Friday as the search continues.<\/p>\n
Anyone with any information about where Patino could be is urged to contact the Fowler Police Department at (559) 834-3254. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 Emergency crews are searching for a missing employee at the National Raisin Company…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-283075","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}