Oregon Rubber Mills fined $3,600 after fatal accident

CORVALLIS, Ore.—The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration has fined a Corvallis-based custom rubber manufacturer $3,600 for a fatal accident at the facility in August.

Trenton Howe, a 23-year-old employee of Oregon Rubber Mills, was operating a cutter machine at the facility Aug. 23 when another employee asked him for help with a batch of rubber running through one of the plant's festoon machines.

A festoon machine, according to the report issued in February by Oregon OSHA, is where rubber is cooled and made ready for shipment.

"Rubber strips are fed onto the machine's metal rods that transport the rubber strips around the festoon while fans blow air out through the rubber strips," the report said.

The other employee wanted Howe to help him get a strip of rubber onto the conveyor belt so the rubber could be placed on a pallet, the report said. When no rubber came out, the employee went to the other side of the conveyor belt to find Howe caught in the festoon machine.

Emergency personnel pronounced Howe dead at the scene, of a broken neck.

In the report, Oregon OSHA investigators noted that Oregon Rubber Mills' festoon machines operate almost continuously during the day. At the time of the accident, it said, there was no way to prevent operators or other employees from coming into contact with the machine's moving parts.

Oregon OSHA fined the company $6,000 on Feb. 12. Under Oregon law, any company fined by Oregon OSHA is entitled to a reduction based on size, according to an agency spokesman. Oregon Rubber Mills, as a company with between 26 and 90 employees, received a 40-percent discount, he said.

Oregon Rubber Mills did not appeal the citation, and has paid the fine, the spokesman said. The company has erected a barrier to prevent workers from stepping into the machine, he said.

"Essentially, the hazard was engineered out," the spokesman said.

An Oregon Rubber Mills executive confirmed that the company paid the fine, but declined further comment.

According to its website, Oregon Rubber Mills has been a manufacturing rubber compounds since 1967.

The company has three dedicated production lines for black rubber, a dedicated production line for non-black rubber, and capabilities to provide specialty small batches from three to 150 pounds, the website said. It offers a wide range of compounds based on at least 15 different polymers, including SBR, NBR, polybutadiene and neoprene.