OSHA investigating death of Jonathan Sprinkle at Kimble landfill
Tuesday Posted Nov 15, 2016 at 7:58 AM
Share By Nancy Molnar Times-Reporter staff writer
DOVER, PA - The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating an accident that killed a 62-year-old New Philadelphia man at the Kimble Sanitary Landfill on Thursday.
"We have a compliance officer on site conducting the inspection," said David Wilson, acting area director of the OSHA Columbus area office, on Monday. "We just opened the inspection this morning."
Tuscarawas County Sheriff Walt Wilson said shortly after the incident that a heavy-equipment operator backed over Jonathan W. Sprinkle, who worked on the ground assisting trucks unloading at the landfill. The operator of the front-end loader checked his mirrors before backing the equipment that emits beeps when running in reverse, according to Wilson.
Sprinkle's obituary said he had worked 18 years for the Kimble companies.
"Kimble Company is deeply saddened by the tragic passing of one of its valued employees on November 10, 2016," Kimble Co. general counsel Nathan D. Vaughan said in a prepared statement.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the deceased," he wrote in an email to The Times-Reporter. "Out of respect for the family and those involved we are not releasing any additional details of this incident and are working closely with authorities who are reviewing the matter."
Sprinkle's death is not the first to occur at a Kimble business.
OSHA fined Kimble Clay & Limestone $4,000 for a 2003 accident that killed Lorin H. Beaber, 52, of Mineral City.
An OSHA report on the incident said the deceased, a forklift operator, picked up a bank of oxygen cylinders to load onto a flatbed truck. He set the emergency brake, and dismounted from the forklift while it was still running, with the load suspended in the air. He was found pinned between the load and the truck. He was asphyxiated.
The investigation of the 2003 incident showed that Beaber did not lower the forks prior to dismounting. It also found that the forklift was defective because the parking brake did not work and the tilt boom mast drifted under the load.
A wrongful death lawsuit filed in 2004 in Tuscarawas County Common Pleas Court by the family of the deceased against the company was dismissed at the heirs' request the following year.
Kimble Clay & Limestone and Kimble Sanitary Landfill share the same address at 3596 State Route 39 NW in Dover Township.
The company reached an out-of-court settlement in a case in which one of its trucks collided with a Garrettsville man's vehicle on State Route 8 in Stow in 2013. The estate of Daniel L. Vincent, who died shortly after the crash, charged that the truck from J & J Refuse and Kimble Recycling & Disposal had mismatched brakes and was driven by an operator whose driving record had not been adequately investigated by the business.
The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 71 fatalities occurred in the waste management and remediation sector of the economy in 2014, the most recent year for which figures were listed. Deaths totaled 63 in 2013, 65 in 2012 and 75 in 2011.