OSHA investigating Marengo incident where employee burned by molten metal

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration opened an inspection Thursday with Arnold Magnetic Technologies, the Marengo manufacturer where an employee was burned with molten metal this week, a U.S. Department of Labor spokesperson said.

“No further information will be available until OSHA has completed their investigation, which by law, they have six months to complete” according to an email from Department of Labor Regional Director for Public Affairs and Media Relations Scott Allen of the agency’s Chicago office.

The Marengo Fire and Rescue Districts were called Tuesday afternoon to the plant at 300 N. West St. for the report of a commercial fire structure. There, they found an employee who had been burned when a “liquid metal explosion occurred inside a machine,” a department spokesperson said.

The employee, described as an adult male, was taken by ambulance to OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center in Rockford with life-threatening burn injuries, the spokesperson said.

OSHA’s last inspection at Arnold Magnetic Technologies, according to the OSHA website, was in August 2015. The health complaint was closed in October of that year and no fines or other enforcement was noted.

A person answering the plant’s general phone number said the company had no comment at this time on OSHA’s investigation.