Timkensteel in OSHA’S serious violator program
Fined more than $315K in fatal accident at mill
CANTON – Timkensteel has been placed in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s severe violator enforcement program and ordered to pay more than $315,000 in fines following the investigation of a fatal accident at the Gambrinus Steel Mill.
OSHA took the action after investigating the Dec. 27 incident that led to the death of Douglas Gauze, 65, of Canton, a machine operator in the Gambrinus facility.
According to OSHA, inspectors determined that Gauze suffered fatal crushing injuries because Timkensteel failed to install guards and provide proper hand tools that would have protected workers from entanglement hazards while operating a bar straightening machine.
It’s the third time in five years that Timkensteel has been cited for safety failures by OSHA, which is part of the U.S. Department of Labor.
OSHA issued the ruling on June 22. Timkensteel has 15 business days to respond. The company is reviewing the citations and declined comment.
“The safety and well-being of our employees remains our highest priority,” a spokeswoman wrote in an email, adding that the company “fully cooperated with OSHA throughout the course of its investigation.”
Investigators for OSHA determined that Gauze was injured after being caught on a piece of steel bar rotating at a high speed.
The inspectors determined that Timkensteel provided workers with hooks to manipulate the spinning steel bars, but they weren’t long enough. A worker’s hands would be in the machine’s “danger zone” as the steel was being guided into the straightener, OSHA officials said.
While investigating, inspectors also learned that Timkensteel had previously modified similar machines by adding a mechanical feed roll unit that eliminated the need for workers to touch the rotating steel. The company, however, canceled a plan to modify the machine involved in the fatal accident, OSHA said.
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elsewhere in the Midwest and into Arizona. A second Pickle Shack location will eventually be built in Sunbury, he said.
“That’s why I felt there’s a problem; tennis clubs right now are just putting pickleball lines on top of their tennis courts,” Ganim said. “It’s not fair to pickleball. Pickleball deserves its own dedicated courts.”
Ganim said he already owned his own buildings for the two Ohio locations, but finding other spaces has been challenging.
“The serious player wants to play 12 months a year, so there’s no place to play indoors of consequence right now,” he said. “That’s why we built this indoor facility.”
In addition to the Pickle Shack, the Real Dill Pickleball Club will be coming to Columbus in fall 2023 next to Ikea and Topgolf in the Polaris area, and Pickle and Chill is scheduled to bring six indoor courts in October to the Tennis Club building at 880 W. Henderson Road.
Several Columbus-area communities, such as Bexley and Worthington, have also added pickleball courts in recent years.
Among Ohio pickleball players is Kent Mercker, the Dublin native who played major league baseball for 17 seasons and pitched a no-hitter for the Atlanta Braves in 1994. Mercker said he started playing because of Ganim and was immediately hooked. He has been playing for three years.
“We just noticed how many people in Columbus were actually playing the game,” he said. “Dave saw that and ... he wants to make Columbus the pickleball capital of the United States.”
Mercker, a Pickle Shack member and sponsored player, said he believes the Pickle Shack will draw a crowd of players who want to play as much as possible, even if they live far away.
“It would be hard to find a better facility, probably in the country, than what he’s doing up there in Delaware,” he said.
Mercker anticipates pickleball will eventually become a D1 sport on the collegiate level and even make its way to the Olympics.
David Seckel, co-founder of Columbus Pickleball, said there’s a “perfect storm” of indoor facilities opening in the area right now.
Seckel said though it’s possible to find outdoor courts during the day, there are times where it’s busier than others, such as early morning and after work. In the colder months though, pickleball players have had to play on indoor tennis facilities.
“The problem with that is that the tennis facilities are obviously going to prioritize tennis, so pickleball is thrown in on random time,” he said. “You can’t really get the weekend games or anything like that.”
New courts around town will help with demand, which Seckel expects only to grow.
“I don’t see pickleball slowing down, to be honest,” Seckel said. “I think it’s going to continue to pop off. They’re starting to get a lot more money in the sport.”
@E_skidmoregs eskidmore@gannett.com