A Cuyahoga Falls company known for custom rubber mixing and products is slapped with citations after an employee suffered a life-changing injury.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration followed up on a complaint that an employee at Polymerics had suffered an injury while using a rubber cutting shear machine. The employee's injury on July 27, 2011, resulted in a hand amputation.

Polymerics faces four citations, including a willful violation for failing to ensure that the machine in question, was kept in good working order.

“Failing to ensure that safety mechanisms on hazardous machines are working properly demonstrates a lack of regard for employees’ safety and health,” Howard Eberts said in a press release, OSHA’s area director in Cleveland. “OSHA is committed to protecting workers on the job, especially when employers fail to do so.”

The company has 15 business days to pay $74,900 in fines. Polymericsemploys 56 people at its two facilities in, one off of Second Street in the Falls and the other in Kent. In the past, OSHA has inspected the company six times since 1983.