Cal/OSHA Fines Vary Greatly in Deaths, Injuries

By law, California’s occupational safety and health program (Cal/OSHA) investigates industrial accidents in which workers are killed or seriously injured. The outcomes of those cases can vary greatly. Under a schedule strengthened last year, a company can be fined up to $7,000 for each serious violation of health and safety standards, and $70,000 for repeated and willful violations. Rarely, however, are the maximum fines imposed.

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Mercedes Verdugo was given one day of instruction at Lee’s Pottery in Paramount before he was allowed to operate a hydraulic press that punches plates and saucers from wet clay, records show.

About two months later, on Aug. 2, 1991, Verdugo, 23, apparently reached into the press to wipe away some excess clay when he accidentally leaned on two control buttons. In an instant, the press stroked downward, crushing Verdugo’s head with more than 3,000 pounds of pressure per square inch.

His supervisor said Verdugo had been instructed to walk around to the back of the machine when cleaning it, according to records. Company officials speculated that Verdugo may have committed suicide.

Cal/OSHA cited Lee’s Pottery for nine safety violations. The company did not have an accident prevention program, did not keep annual records of job-related accidents or illnesses, and did not provide hand tools for scraping away excess clay. Moreover, the control buttons should have been equipped with a safety guard.

Total fines: $1,800.

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It was 3:30 a.m. in Anaheim and Salvador Rodriguez was working at Essex Group Inc., manufacturing electrical wire, when the extruding machine he was operating malfunctioned.

As the 37-year-old Mexican turned to find tools to open the extruder, pieces of hot nylon spewed from the machine, showering Rodriguez’s face, shoulders and arms, and sending him to the hospital for three days. Rodriguez’s supervisor was also burned, but less seriously.

Cal/OSHA’s investigation found a number of violations. A safety barrier was not installed on at least one machine, and water that spilled from a leaking trough made the floors dangerously slippery.

Investigators fixed blame for the May 15, 1990, accident on Rodriguez’s supervisor: The extruder exploded because he had not properly cleared the machine of hardened nylon before starting it.

The company was not fined.

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Ricardo Romero, 28, an employee of Optima Wheel Co. in Santa Fe Springs, was making a wheel rim shortly before midnight on July 9, 1991, while a co-worker, Avelino Garcia, worked on another lathe 15 feet away. Without warning, a jagged, 50-pound piece of Garcia’s lathe spun free, breaking his arm and slamming into Romero’s head, injuring him fatally.

Optima Vice President Tom Zastera told Cal/OSHA that the accident was Garcia’s fault: Garcia had allegedly failed to properly tighten two bolts on the lathe and had improperly increased the machine’s computerized speed control, causing the part to break away and fly into Romero.

Garcia’s attorney, Steve Kuhn, said the machine was responsible for Romero’s death because it was not equipped with an automatic shut-off device.

Cal/OSHA ordered Optima to pay a $1,590 fine but concluded that company officials could not have foreseen nor prevented the incident.

“This was a serious accident,” safety engineer Chet Way wrote in his report, “but we cannot establish the knowledge on the part of the employers” that a hazard existed before the accident.

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Industrial Insulation Corp. in the City of Industry manufactures blankets of fiberglass insulation. On May 6, 1992, Martin Pulido, 26, was at his regular work station in the plant, helping operate an arc furnace. He suddenly screamed and dropped dead, the victim of an apparent electrocution.

It was never determined how many volts surged through Pulido, a former Marine from Los Angeles’ Eastside. The furnace’s power meters, one witness said, “did not work right.”

Cal/OSHA’s investigation found, among other alleged safety violations, that Pulido had been wearing damp work gloves while attempting to replace an electrode, and that no one present at the time had been trained in first aid.

The company’s former production manager, Tom Saunders, blamed the accident on “employee error.”

“There was no problem with the machine,” Saunders said.

Cal/OSHA fined Industrial Insulation $2,400, citing deficiencies in electrical equipment at the plant. The company appealed the fine and agreed to pay $800.

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Gustavo Romero was trained as a newspaper technician in Mexico City and later landed a job at Master-Halco Inc., a chain-link fence manufacturer in Fontana.

On Aug. 21, 1990, without any special protective equipment, the 43-year-old Romero said he was directed to lower a ladder into a room-size galvanizing oven. He used a metal rod to knock dried chunks of hardened zinc from the oven walls.

Steel plates protected him from an eight-foot-deep caldron of zinc bubbling beneath his feet. But as Romero swung the rod, his ladder skidded and his lower left leg slipped knee-deep into the molten zinc. A co-worker quickly dragged him out, but Romero’s leg already had been burned to the bone in some places.

Romero was hospitalized for a month. Someone from Cal/OSHA later called and said they wanted to question him, Romero said, but he was never contacted again.

When The Times asked to see Cal/OSHA’s reports on the incident, a spokesman said the file apparently had been misplaced.

Romero, who today must walk with a cane, has gone back to work at Master-Halco.

The company’s safety manager, Richard Aceves, declined to discuss the incident, citing a lawsuit Romero has filed as a result of his injuries.