Corporate America loves to cut corners until someone gets hurt.
Then they express sympathy and promise to do better.
But Dollar Tree's safety record just caught up with them in the worst possible way.
Florida doctor found dead in store freezer
Helen Massiell Garay Sanchez was a 32-year-old anesthesiologist from Nicaragua who specialized in congenital heart disease.
She dedicated her career to saving children's lives.
Now her own two children are left without a mother after she was found dead inside a Dollar Tree freezer in Miami's Little Havana on Sunday morning.
Store employees discovered Sanchez's naked body around 8 a.m. in a walk-in freezer located in a restricted employee-only area.¹
Police say she entered the store Saturday night before closing but didn't make any purchases.
Somehow she made her way to the back storage room and spent the entire night trapped in that freezer.
https://twitter.com/wienerdogwifi/status/2001029540894638307?s=20
Miami Police ruled out foul play but are investigating whether she was experiencing mental health issues.²
The Medical Examiner will determine the cause of death, but hypothermia seems like the obvious answer when you freeze to death overnight in a commercial freezer.
Her family described the incident as "a tragic accident while abroad" and set up a GoFundMe to bring her body back to Nicaragua for burial.³
Local residents expressed shock that something like this could happen at a discount store.
"I think it's crazy. I've never heard of something like that in my life," Hugo Morales told CBS Miami.⁴
A pattern of safety violations
This isn't an isolated incident at an otherwise safe company.
Dollar Tree has been flagged for unsafe and hazardous conditions at nearly 600 stores and warehouses between 2014 and 2024, according to inspection data from across the country.⁵
OSHA issued $22.7 million in penalties from federal inspections between 2017 and April 2024.⁶
Those penalties resulted from violations including blocked fire exits, hazardous work areas, and stores infested with rodents and insects.
"The hazards regulators have found at Dollar Tree stores have become a recurring theme," said Eric S. Harbin, an OSHA regional administrator in Dallas.⁷
The safety conditions at some stores "create the potential for tragic consequences in an emergency," Harbin warned.
That was in June 2023.
Now we have exactly the kind of tragic consequence he warned about.
In 2023, Dollar Tree subsidiary Family Dollar pled guilty to holding consumer products under insanitary conditions at a rodent-infested warehouse.
They paid $41.675 million — the largest-ever monetary criminal penalty in a food safety case.⁸
The company knew about the rodent and pest issues but continued shipping products anyway.
Dollar Tree's median employee pay is $15,599 annually — just above the federal poverty level.⁹
That's what you get when a company cares more about squeezing profits than maintaining safe working conditions.
Overstacked storage rooms, blocked safety exits, and inadequate staffing create dangerous environments for workers and customers alike.
Dr. Sanchez somehow accessed a restricted employee area and ended up dead in a freezer.
How does a non-employee wander into a back storage room without anyone noticing?
Where were the safety protocols?
Why wasn't that freezer secured?
These are the questions Dollar Tree needs to answer.
But they won't because they've shown for years they don't take safety seriously until they're forced to pay millions in fines.
Even then, they just negotiate the penalties down and promise to do better.
This isn't about one tragic accident.
This is about a company with 590 documented safety violations that creates environments where tragedies like this can happen.
A brilliant doctor who saved children's lives froze to death in a discount store that's been cited hundreds of times for unsafe conditions.
That's not an accident.
That's a pattern.
¹ Brett Knese, "Police ID woman found dead inside freezer at Miami Dollar Tree," Local 10 News, December 15, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ "Reports: 32-year-old doctor, mother found dead inside Florida Dollar Tree freezer," WTSP, December 16, 2025.
⁴ "Residents react to woman found dead inside Dollar Tree freezer in Miami's Little Havana," CBS12, December 17, 2025.
⁵ Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism, "Dollar Tree, a Virginia corporate success, faces new pressures over its history of violations," WHRO, July 31, 2024.
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ U.S. Department of Justice, "Family Dollar Stores LLC Pleads Guilty to Holding Consumer Products under Insanitary Conditions," February 6, 2025.
⁹ Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism, "Dollar Tree, a Virginia corporate success, faces new pressures over its history of violations," WHRO, July 31, 2024.
