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Worker At Bartow Plant Killed In Shredder

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By BILLY TOWNSEND | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 21, 2007

Updated: 11/21/2007 10:10 am

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BARTOW - Vernon Lambeth had fulfilled a dream.

After years of work as an electrician in California, the 60-year-old Lambeth saved enough money to buy a house and an orange grove on Lake Clinch in Frostproof, his childhood home. Lambeth moved to Frostproof with his wife and three children about two years ago.

"He was raised in Frostproof, and he decided he wanted the small-town life for his family," said Chyrel Lambeth, his sister-in-law.

Vernon Lambeth took a job with the Rotonics Manufacturing plastics plant in Bartow.

It was there, in one awful instant Tuesday, that Lambeth was killed by an industrial shredding machine, the Polk County Sheriff's Office reported.

Lambeth had been performing maintenance on the machine when a co-worker, not realizing Lambeth was working above him, turned on the shredder, which pulled Lambeth into it, sheriff's spokeswoman Donna Wood said.

The incident occurred just before noon Tuesday at the Rotonics Manufacturing plant, which is inside the Bartow Airport complex. Detectives arrived shortly after to investigate, Wood said.

They found that the shredding machine had been malfunctioning and that Lambeth and another employee were working on the machine's upper level prior to the incident.

"A third employee, unaware that the two were working above him, turned the machine on at the lower level," Wood said. "This caused Lambeth to be sucked inside."

Wood said Lambeth's death appears accidental. The Medical Examiner's office will determine cause of death.

The Occupational Safety and Health Association was notified and responded to the Rotonics plant to investigate. No comment from OSHA was immediately available.

Lambeth, who has three brothers, leaves behind a wife and three children, ages 12 to 16, Chyrel Lambeth said. His children are enrolled at Frostproof Junior-Senior High School. The family attended First Baptist Church in Frostproof, and ministers from the church have been fixtures at the family home since Tuesday's accident, Chyrel Lambeth said.

She described her brother-in-law as a family man who always made time for his wife children, whether driving boats and jet skis with them on the lake or going to a restaurant for a weekly family night.

In his personal time, Lambeth loved tinkering in the orange grove on his property, Chyrel Lambeth said.

Services for Lambeth have not been set.

The Bartow Rotonics plant is one of 10 manufacturing branches for Rotonics Manufacturing Inc. The Gardena, Calif.-based company bills itself as one of the largest "rotational molding" manufacturers in the United States. Rotational molding is a process for creating a variety of plastic products.

Rotonics builds everything from kayaks to trash cans to planters, according to its Web site.

Reporter Billy Townsend can be reached at (863) 284-1409 or wtownsend@tampatrib.com.

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