Ternium and Siemens, without taking responsibility for work accident at their facilities

Sanjuana Martínez

La Jornada newspaper
Sunday, September 14, 2025, p. 8

“What were you doing there?” Said Máximo Vedoya, executive president of Ternium Mexico, to the Mechatronics engineer Karla Beatriz Castro Delgado, who was prostrated in a hospital stretcher with serious second and third degrees burns in feet and legs, caused by hot iron dust of direct reduction improperly scattered on the floor of the Guerrero branch, which is part of the multinational León, while covering his turn. The indolence and cruelty of the executive director of Ternium left Karla perplexed, who at that time suffered a sharp and indescribable pain and saw how the skin of his limbs detached himself causing redness, swelling and blisters.

The diagnosis was devastating: “You will lose one of your feet,” the doctor of the San José Hospital warned him, where he was transferred by his mother Adriana Delgado, after the medical service of the company’s Nova Clinic lacked the burn care unit.

Given the emergency, the so -called “steel leader” and executive director of Ternium, Máximo Vedoya, recognized a few months ago as the “Steelmaker” of the 2025 and the main steel supply of the Government of Samuel García, with contracts for billions of dollars, not only fired it. He also withdrew the medical service and condemned it to ostracism arguing that the accident was his fault. Eight years have passed since then, and Karla has nine operations that her family paid for and that fortunately they managed to save their feet and legs. For a year he was entering and leaving hospitals in Mexico City, where he lives, unable to walk, using wheelchair and prostrated in bed receiving skin grafts to recover skin cells.

His life radically changed that fateful June 13, 2017, day of the work accident caused by the lack of security of the company. Industrial engineer of excellence graduated with honors, and working for Siemens, collaborator of Ternium; The Ítalo-Argentino Techint group composed of the old regiomontanas Hylsa and IMSA steelblain with Ternium-Sidear, Karla undertook a legal battle to try to access the justice that the company itself denied.

It is a fight like David’s against Goliath, but just as the young pastor managed to defeat the giant Philistine, Karla trusts that finally the reform of the Judiciary allows him to achieve recognition as a victim and a legitimate financial compensation by the multinational that has resorted to legal arguments to delay the process.

The lawsuit was presented on December 11, 2018 before the Superior Court of Justice of Mexico City, and was admitted on January 7, 2019, based before the twentieth Civil Court of Mexico City with File 1314/2018.

However, Ternium wanted to play on his court because “allegedly controls the Judiciary”, and on September 17, 2020 they argued “incompetence”, so the trial was filed in the First Oral Civil Judgment Court of the First Judicial District of Nuevo León, but without properly notifying Karla, who promoted the direct amparo 697/2021. It was until July 13, 2023 when the First Collegiate Court in Civil Matters of the Fourth Circuit determined that the prevention that was ordered should have been personally notified.

Since then, Karla has undergone a revictimization process for the judicial expert opinions requested by the defendant company that began last July, especially the psychological ones, the psychiatric doctor and the rehabilitation.

Relive trauma

Due to this process, it was quoted at the Nova Clinic, but the Pernium’s expert never arrived: “I spent four hours; it seems that they want to tire me and cause more damage. The lawyers of the company have requested a test at the same plant where I almost lost a foot. On the part of Siemens they took me to a very uncomfortable miniconsultory. The last two months have been very difficult Monterrey, which costs effort and money. ” He adds that he also implies “remembering everything. I made the insomnia. I returned to the psychologist and the treatment with psychiatrist; while those of Ternium continue to take it as an ‘incident’, not as an accident due to the lack of industrial safety.”

Judge Eric Alejandro Arenas Guzmán pointed out on December 9 and 15 to vent evidence, and requested the record of the place where the accident happened: “They do not want to recognize my case so as not to mark a precedent. Having all the money in the world, they took away the medical insurance. They disregarded all my expenses, although everything happened in their plant for not having the necessary conditions to work.”

He recalled that Ternium subcontracted Siemens for automation projects, therefore both companies are responsible for what happened to him: “They lack security measures, but the most important thing is that they do not recognize their failures. If they did, I would not be in this process.”

Remember that when Máximo Vedoya went to see her to the hospital, her mother asked her to transfer her to a hospital in Galveston, Texas, where people with burns attend, but “he said he did not believe it necessary. It was very cruel. Then they made a security board where they assured that it had been my fault, when they did not even interview me or asked me how it happened; everything was my responsibility.”

He adds: “Máximo Vedoya insisted and asked the reason why I was in the plant, although I had already worked several projects in the same place. I explained that I was an automation engineer and that it was part of the collector project in the permitted pedestrian area, in which you could travel to do the job.” Karla explains that the day of the accident was with her uniform and safety equipment, but the hot iron dust of direct reduction (HRD) that was thrown without “caution” signs was reactivated when she came into contact with the oxygen and immediately entered her clothes and felt great pain in her feet and legs.

The company did not have protocols to solve these cases. The attention was not immediate. Karla waited for the emergency team to arrive, and then wait for a long time to take it on a stretcher through a crane. His recovery was slow, painful and expensive. For a year he did not walk, then the psychiatrist José Newman diagnosed him post -traumatic stress and depression: “The first weeks in Monterrey were terrible. Uncertainty for the economic issue was very distressing. He had to have his feet up for skin grafts.

The first steps were given after more than a year and my rehabilitation was three. Then I could be more self -sufficient. ”His mother looked for help at the Michou and Mau Foundation, where he was recommended to Dr. Yusef Jiménez Murat, a specialist in plastic, aesthetic and reconstructive surgery, who finally operated it. For her part, Siemens refused to give her medical service:“ They said goodbye, they took away the insurance. We sent him a letter with a lawyer to ask for the policy and we continue paying, but they did not accept. Neither Siemens nor Ternium looked for me more; It earned them. It was a totally contempt attitude. ”

Recurring mishaps

He holding company Ternium has its two main companies owned by Paolo Rocca and operates in 45 countries, but in Monterrey the cases of fatal accidents have marked its existence, in addition to the pollution it causes. On July 22, 2013, 11 workers died after an explosion for gas accumulation at the same Guerrero plant, located in San Nicolás de los Garza.

On July 25, the worker Emiliano Gaona Martínez, 23, died at the Churubusco plant. “They always have accidents, it is urgent that they recognize that they have failures and that they must compensate for the damage they cause,” says Karla.

His lawyer, Juan Carlos Cajigas Lozano, partner of the Cervantes Office, points out that they have managed to prove the capacity of the companies to pay the moral damage caused to Karla: “It is indeterminate amount until the execution of the declarative sentence. It will be the judge who establishes the amount, but they have done everything possible to not pay and to delay the trial. Being world -class companies, it is not possible for them to treat their employees. Karla suffered the accident. ” He considers that the expert opinions are important because they demonstrate severe emotional damage, although the experts of the both companies assert that there is no affectation: “it is incongruous because they first recognize that yes, and then they are disregarded.”

He points out that there are irregularities that have affected the case. First the change of competition taken to Nuevo León, then the lack of adequate notification to Karla; Then, the court did not move the file for a year because they “lost” the exhort, and finally the way in which Judge Arenas Guzmán is agreeing the evidence in favor of the companies: “It does not act in a plane of equality between the parties. There is partiality towards Siemens and Ternium.” He adds: “Do the judge and companies have any relationship? Did any gifts receive corruption? We do not know. We want them to restore Karla’s prestige and honor, which is compensated in a fair and complete way, and that they offer a public apology.”

Karla is filled with tears when remembering her emotional and physical scars. I had a professional and personal life plan in Monterrey, where I was happy: “Everything was truncated. I will live with the consequences of the accident all my life.”