Maria Fernandes, 32, of Newark, New Jersey reportedly died, originally reported by the New Jersey Star-Ledger, after inhaling carbon monoxide while sleeping in her 2001 Kia Sportage car on the side of the road between shifts.
Maria Fernandes (Photo courtesy of Elizabeth police department)
The New Jersey woman, who worked 4 jobs, was trying to get some extra sleep, and left her car running while she napped. She also kept a gas container in the car because sometimes she ran out of gas, so the carbon monoxide and gasoline fumes were the likely cause of death after combining to poison her, as authorities claimed. Her exhausted and weakened physical state also most likely contributed to her death.
Although Toxicology reports on Fernandes’ death are still pending, detectives said Fernandes pulled into WAWA convenience store lot off Route 1 and 9 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. They said they do not suspect illegal play in her death.
Fernandes was found near this Wawa shop.
Richard Culhane, Maria Fernandes’ friend confirmed that “a problem” with an exhaust valve on her car was figured out by a mechanic earlier this month.
Elizabeth police Lieutenant. Daniel Saulnier said:
“This sounds like someone who tried desperately to work and make ends meet, and met with a tragic accident.”
Fernandes, a Massachusetts native worker, was immigrated to the United States from Portugal. According to her colleagues, she was lovely and kind person, used to sing and dance while hearing Michael Jackson songs at work.
A friend of her told NJ.com:
“She used to work like three shifts every day, sometimes she wouldn’t sleep for five days.”
Another one, Ravina Ramjit, said:
“She was a very sweet person. A hardworking person, she was always joking around with everybody.”
The director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, Carl Van Horn, said:
“These are folks who would like to work full-time but they can’t find the jobs, they wind up in these circumstances in which they are exhausted. More commonly it creates just an enormous amount of stress.”
Fernandes was not the only one, as The Star-Ledger confirmed, tens of thousands of New Jersey workers employed at multiple jobs. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that about 7.5 million people in America are working multiple jobs, after thousands employees lost their jobs in the recession of 2008.
Van Horn revealed that many Americans were doing 2 or 3 such different jobs to make ends meet, saying:
“The average person who lost their job took a 10 percent pay cut (after returning to the workforce).”
This is one of the results of the ever-increasing gap between hourly pay, the cost of living, and the profits of stockholders and CEOs.