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OSHA cites organic food company after employee loses fingertips

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OSHA cites organic food company after employee loses fingertips

A U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian organic food company has been cited and is facing $118,320 in proposed penalties from U.S. workplace safety regulators after a 30-year-old employee's three fingertips were amputated.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said the incident at Richmond, British Columbia-based Nature's Path Foods Inc.'s U.S. subsidiary could have been avoided if the machine the employee was cleaning had been fully powered down, the agency said Wednesday in a statement.

OSHA issued two repeat citations for the latest incident after having previously cited the subsidiary in Sussex, Wisconsin, for the same violation in 2012, as well as 14 serious and one other-than-serious safety violation after investigating the November 2015 injury, according to the agency. Safety violations included a failure to install adequate machine guarding, correct electrical safety violations and train workers about chemical hazards in the workplace.

“Training workers to isolate energy, as required by OSHA standards, would have prevented this young man's hands from coming in contact with the operating parts of the machine,” Christine Zortman, OSHA's area director in Milwaukee, said in a statement. “Employers are required to ensure equipment is properly guarded or locked out to prevent workers from getting into danger zones of equipment.”

A company spokesperson could not be immediately reached for comment.

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