The company produces industrial hoses, conveyor belting and ducting materials for an array of applications and industries, including transportation, food processing and agriculture.
The worker in question, who was 25 years old at the time of accident, allegedly suffered "severe crushing injuries," OSHA said, while working at the Bellefontaine location June 22, 2023.
The company was ordered to pay $389,534 in fines and make necessary safety upgrades to its central Ohio facility following the investigation.
"This employee suffered preventable injuries because their employer continues to ignore its responsibility to protect their workers," OSHA Area Director Todd Jensen, based in Toledo, Ohio, said Dec. 20. "We cited the company for safety violations on the very same machine in March 2023, and they still failed to protect their employees.
"It's time for HBD/Thermoid Inc. to make the safety of their employees a priority."
OSHA cited HBD/Thermoid with two repeat violations, one willful-serious violation, one serious violation and one other-than-serious violation, involving "lack of adequate machine guarding and required machine safety measures that isolate energy to protect workers during setup or servicing activities, commonly known as lockout/tagout procedures."
According to the Department of Labor, the accident could have been prevented if the company had followed required safety measures.
Specifically, the OSHA inspector said the worker sustained injuries because of "the company's failure to abide by lockout/tagout procedures."
As such, powered belts on a machine "were still energized and unguarded, pulling the worker into the machine."
Allen said the litigation process at this point, considering the contested citations, could "take up to a year to conclude."
Options that HBD/Thermoid could have selected following the Dec. 20 issuance included compliance with the Jan. 5 deadline for abatements; requesting an informal conference with OSHA's Jensen; or contesting the findings before an independent review commission.