A 58-year-old man from Iselin was trapped by a conveyor machine Thursday morning at a Cintas facility in Union, suffering a broken hip and fractures to both legs before firefighters and paramedics could free him. The accident happened at around 10:30 a.m. at the company's building on Green Lane, according to Union Deputy Police Chief Barry Cohen.
Union firefighters and EMS crews responded to the industrial accident and worked to free the man from the machine, according to Westfield, NJ Patch. Once freed, he was taken to University Hospital in Newark for treatment of the broken hip and multiple fractures in both legs, as reported by Daily Voice. Cohen said the man's injuries were considered not life-threatening.
What Happened at the Green Lane Facility
The Cintas location sits at 546 Green Lane in Union, the site where the worker became trapped in the conveyor machine while on the job, per the same Patch account. Details about the specific task he was performing or which part of the machine caught him have not been released.
The incident remains under investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the station's report notes. OSHA has not indicated whether any violation occurred at the Cintas site, and no findings have been made public.
Federal Rules on Machine Guarding
Industrial conveyor accidents often draw scrutiny to federal safety standards governing moving machine parts. OSHA regulations state that the point of operation — the area on a machine where work is performed on the material being processed — must be guarded when its operation exposes an employee to injury, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The agency has separately published guidance outlining commonly used machine guards and other safeguarding devices meant to prevent workers from being caught in equipment.
It is not known whether machine guarding or lockout procedures played any role in Thursday's incident at Cintas; the OSHA materials describe general industry requirements rather than findings specific to this case. The man's current condition and recovery outlook beyond the initial, non-life-threatening assessment have not been disclosed.
