Employee electrocuted to death at paper mill, feds say. Now Alabama company must pay
A worker at a paper mill died on the clock after he was electrocuted in Alabama, federal authorities said. Now the company the man worked for is facing fines.
A 36-year-old employee at the South Coast Paper LLC in Maplesville was fatally electrocuted while trying to fix a piece of machinery in the mill, the feds said in an April 13 news release.
A conveyor belt stopped working on a mill machine in September 2022 and a team of three workers attempted to replace the belt motor, according to the release. During the time the employees were trying to fix the motor, a “hot wire made contact with the ground and energized the machine,” according to federal officials.
The 36-year-old man grabbed a railing connected to the machine and was electrocuted, the release said.
South Coast Paper was cited for lack of machine guarding and “not providing clear access in front of a 480-volt breaker panel nor training on electrical safe work practices,” according to the Department of Labor.
The Occupational Safety and Health Association proposed $227,040 in penalty fines due to the violations, the release said.
OSHA cited the company for a similar violation in June 2022 at its Burlington, New Jersey, facility, the release said.
“There is no reason to perform maintenance on machinery without first taking all steps to de-energize that piece of equipment. Doing otherwise places workers at serious risk for injury and death,” OSHA Area Office Director Jose Gonzalez said in the release.
South Coast Paper is headquartered in Columbia, SC with production facilities in Maplesville, AL., Burlington, NJ, and Tulttitlan Estado de Mexico, according to the company website.
Maplesville is about 50 miles south of Birmingham.
This story was originally published April 17, 2023 at 1:21 PM with the headline "Employee electrocuted to death at paper mill, feds say. Now Alabama company must pay."
