Food factory worker injured in industrial accident in East Farmingdale, police say
The worker was injured after putting his hand in a food-dicing machine to clean it. Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto/kali9
A worker at an East Farmingdale food packing factory severed three of his fingertips on Wednesday evening in what the Suffolk police called an industrial accident.
The worker, 45-year-old Elmer Rios, of North Amityville, was operating a food-dicing machine when he put his hand inside the machine to clean it and "three of his fingertips were cut off," a police news release said. The severed fingertips were on his right hand, the police press office wrote in an email.
The incident happened around 7:35 p.m. at L&S Packing Company, 101 Central Ave., where Rios was working, according to the release, which said the police notified the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the U.S. workplace safety agency.
A man who answered at a telephone number registered to an L&S official declined to comment. OSHA couldn't be reached, and neither could Rios.
He was treated at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip, the release said.
L&S, a family-owned company, manufactures or imports a range of specialty packaged foods, sauces, condiments, marinades and dressings, including Fox's U-bet chocolate syrup, Gold's Horseradish and Paesana Pasta Sauce.
In 2010, OSHA fined the company $5,000 after a ton of vodka-flavored sauce fatally crushed a worker named Yolanda Gonzalez, 39, of Lake Ronkonkoma, as she was labeling nearby pallets of canned tomatoes just before the end of her shift, Newsday reported.
After her death, her brother, Elliot Gonzalez, told Newsday that she had complained about conditions at L&S. In an interview with Newsday then, Louis J. Scaramelli IV, the company president, characterized the warehouse as safe and properly set up, and he said the company hadn't received any complaints.
OSHA later ruled that material had been stacked incorrectly and industrial forklifts were being operated without necessary backup lights. At the time the fine was levied, the company owner did not return a call seeking comment from Newsday.
Nationwide, millions of workers are injured on the job, according to OSHA statistics. Manufacturing is one of the top sectors for worker injuries.
Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.
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