Fire truck manufacturer exposes workers to amputation and fall hazards

Employer name: FWD/Seagrave Apparatus, 105 East 12th Street, Clintonville, Wisconsin

Citations issued: Aug. 10, 2015

Investigation findings: The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Appleton office issued one willful, one serious and one other-than-serious safety violations to the company after responding to several complaints alleging unsafe working conditions.

• The willful violation was for not having guards in place, exposing workers to the operating parts of press brakes.
• The serious violation was for exposing employees to fall hazards of about 12 feet from working on top of trucks.
• Investigators also found that potable water was not available at all work sites.

Quote: "Fire trucks play an important role in keeping people safe — but the workers manufacturing these trucks were placed in harm's way because their employer didn't have safety guards to protect them from moving machine parts," said Robert Bonack, OSHA's area director in Appleton. "Thousands of workers suffer lacerations, amputations and fractures each year because they're injured by operating machinery."

Proposed Penalties: $77,000

Link to citations: http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/osha/OSHA20151510fs.pdf

To ask questions; obtain compliance assistance; file a complaint or report amputations, eye loss, workplace hospitalizations, fatalities or situations posing imminent danger to workers, the public should call OSHA's toll-free hotline at 800-321-OSHA (6742) or the agency's Appleton Office at (920) 734-4521.