It’s such a shame, knowing what occurred to Angel Anthony Rojas, that 24-year-old man working at Restland Funeral Home in Dallas as a machine operator. He was such a young dad, and now his family has to deal with this terrible loss that could probably have been avoided if safety rules were better adhered to.
Rojas was in the storage yard on Greenville Avenue, alone, around 2 p.m. on October 20, 2025. He was working to move those huge concrete burial vaults-those placed around coffins underground, weighing around 2,000 pounds each. One of them fell on him and crushed him from the waist down. He ended up with terrible internal injuries.
A tweet from X.
In his last minutes, he was able to dial his wife, Nataly Galaviz, but she had her phone on silent, and it went to voicemail. She would later tell police that he sounded terrified, gasping for air, telling her how much he loved her, wanting only to get home. God, that must have been devastating to listen to afterward.
Dallas Fire-Rescue arrived and used the Jaws of Life, those hydraulic cutters, and some inflatable airbags to lift the thing off him. That took more than 45 minutes-which feels like forever in a situation like that. They rushed him to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital but he didn’t make it.
Nataly’s now raising their little boy, three-year-old Angel Noel Rojas, on her own. She told reporters,
“My husband was sharp on the job. He knew every risk, even the tiny mistakes, and he was careful about everything.”
But she can’t wrap her head around why he was out there solo.
“He shouldn’t have been alone,”
She said flat out.
The family’s lawyers, like Matthew Graham from J. Alexander Law, are calling it straight-up negligence by the funeral home. Graham put it bluntly:
“No way should this guy have been handling that heavy machinery by himself. Working alone, moving stuff that massive it’s just wrong.”
They’re leaning on OSHA rules that say you need help for anything over 50 pounds, so doing this kind of work solo? Total violation. OSHA’s already investigating the death.
Restland, owned by NorthStar Funeral Services of Texas, sent the following statement to WFAA:
“We are devastated to have lost a long-standing, valued employee, and we are cooperating fully with law enforcement to determine what happened.”
But they do have some skeletons in their closet quite literally. Back in 2019, there was a lawsuit over wrongfully digging up someone’s remains.
Jobs in funeral homes aren’t easy-there is heavy lifting and big machinery involved. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says injury rates are above average in this profession. Those vaults can be 2,000 to 2,700 pounds, so you really need a team and the right gear to stay safe.
This whole thing shines a light on a bigger problem too many places skimping on safety enforcement, and it ends up costing lives. As someone following these stories, I’d say we need stricter rules, like always having a buddy system for dangerous tasks, just like OSHA recommends. Without real teeth in those regulations, stuff like this will keep happening.
Rojas’ story is a tough wake-up call about just how weak safety nets can be in workplaces anywhere. Routine gigs can turn deadly if protocols are ignored, and it’s time for better standards to keep folks protected no matter where they’re working.
