Worker injuries mount as giant Hyundai project nears completion

ELLABELL — For 15 excruciating minutes, a Korean-speaking technician bled uncontrollably from his left thigh, trapped in a conveyor belt that had stripped the skin from his hand as if it were a glove.

Emergency medical responders described the 40-year-old man’s horrific wounds sustained at the construction site of Hyundai’s newest electric vehicle conglomerate: a crushed chest, a deformed hand and a mangled leg. After an emergency airlift to Savannah’s trauma hospital 30 miles away, they still didn’t know his name.

Three days later, on June 3, the site’s principal company Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America (HMGMA) released a terse statement. A worker had been treated for severe internal and external injuries and was in stable condition. On June 5, the federal organization that oversees workplace safety finished an onsite inspection—but more than two months later, it has yet to assign any blame.

Since construction began in January 2023, HMGMA and six other Hyundai affiliate factories are rising ahead of schedule from 3,000 acres of clear-cut land just south of I-16. Hyundai officials say their goal is to bring their first electric vehicle off the assembly line by the end of the year — in time to make the Hyundai vehicles built there eligible for buyer incentives in the Biden Administration’s 2024 Inflation Reduction Act.

HYUNDAI SITE FOOTPRINT 2020, 2024

The rapid pace of construction, however, has come at a cost for those who are building Georgia’s largest economic development project, according to one former and one current safety manager at the site.

The two, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from Hyundai, have worked on other large construction projects in the region. Across the sprawling Ellabell site, workplace safety standards are among the worst they have experienced in their careers.

Organizational chaos makes following best safety practices impossible, according to the former manager, and raises questions about whether the dozens of companies involved in the construction are following workplace safety laws.

The conveyor-belt accident, details of which are being reported for the first time, is one of at least 20 traumatic injuries that emergency services personnel have responded to at the Hyundai site since construction began in January 2023 through May 2024, according to emergency services and fire department records obtained by The Current.

Thirteen of these injuries occurred in the first six months of 2024. They include two people injured in falls, two who were hit in the head with equipment and four involved in vehicle accidents. Many required emergency airlifts off the site. One resulted in a worker’s death.

These serious injuries represent a fraction of the total 911 calls from the site, according to documents reviewed by The Current , and exclude incidents such as those in which workers suffered from heat exhaustion, stress injuries, and car crashes without injury.

At the same time, however, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) lists only 10 reports in its public database regarding accidents on the site between January 2023 and May 2024.

Under federal law employers are required to report severe accidents or injuries to OSHA as soon as possible, and the agency launches an enforcement inspection only after it receives a report. It’s unclear what is the cause of the discrepancy between documented injuries and OSHA’s inspections.

The federal agency’s Savannah office did not return multiple phone calls seeking comment about safety standards, its oversight of the dozens of contractors and Hyundai suppliers working at the manufacturing site and how many injuries have been reported from the site.

OSHA’s database lists no inspections for any of the seven Hyundai companies on the site who are legally distinct from each other but will work in tandem to produce Hyundai’s electric vehicles.

One such company, HMGMA is colloquially referred to as “the Metaplant,” and is a newly formed entity contracted with Georgia to receive $2.1 billion in tax deferments, subsidized construction costs, and other perks. In return, it has promised to create 8,500 jobs together with the other Hyundai affiliates on the site.

But, most of the workers building the site facilities are employed through a complex web of subcontractors and suppliers, a common business model that reduces liability for a large company.

OSHA has levied fines for workplace safety violations against two such subcontractors working on the HMGMA facility at the Ellabell site. Louisiana-based Eastern Constructors Incorporated was ordered to pay more than $160,000, while Sungwon Georgia Corp. was fined $22,000. Both companies are contesting the fines.

The one worker known to have died on the site worked for Eastern Constructors, and the company no longer has contracts at the site, according to HMGMA.

HMGMA told The Current in a statement that the company and its affiliates “adhere to strict safety standards throughout the site.”

HMGMA did not answer a question about whether it tracked site-wide worker injuries.

The seven Hyundai factories are independently responsible for reporting construction worker injuries at their facilities to OSHA, HMGMA spokesperson Bianca Johnson wrote. “HMGMA encourages them to submit timely reports as required,” she said. The Current reached out to all seven companies and only received a response from HMGMA .

“There is a standard site orientation for all who enter the site that covers basic safety rules for construction PPE, accident reporting methods, and the availability of an on-site medical clinic,” Johnson wrote. “There is also a weekly safety team meeting with all affiliates to share injury reports, issues found/corrected and best practices. HMGMA also has an on-site Emergency Response Team trained in Medical, Fire, and Spill Response.”

The former safety manager who worked at the HMGMA portion of the site told The Current there were multiple days during which the manager witnessed workers not wearing basic safety equipment such as hard hats or appropriate footwear. Safety orientation, the manager said, lasted only a few minutes.

The pace of work created “an atmosphere of fear and frustration,” according to the former manager.

“The entire time I kept asking myself ‘what I had gotten myself into,’” the former safety manager said. “Chaotic would be an understatement.”

The details of nearly all of the traumatic incidents at the site have never been released to the public. The following are descriptions of multiple incidents as documented by emergency workers and firefighters, and told to The Current by eyewitness employees.

‘Patient had fallen roughly 60 feet’

In the first reported injury, and the only confirmed death on the site, construction worker Victor Javier Gamboa lost his balance while on a third story steel beam of the unfinished paintshop at the HMGMA site on April 29, 2023.

Gamboa, a subcontractor employed by Eastern Constructors, took the job to support his five children and fiancee in Statesboro.

When EMS arrived, he lay on his back, unconscious and unresponsive with his safety belt unbuckled around his waist. He had been wearing an arrest lanyard, a length of wire designed to catch the wearer in case of a fall. But during his fall, a steel I-beam severed the wire, leaving Gamboa to plummet 60 feet to the ground. Workers who saw the accident told EMS that Gamboa had hit a lower beam during his fall.

EMS tried triage, but they were unsuccessful in saving him. Gamboa was pronounced dead, and care for his body was signed over to the Bryan County coroner an hour and 42 minutes after EMS arrived at the scene.

OSHA investigated Eastern Constructors, and the agency ruled that the firm committed both a serious and a willful violation of labor law. This judgment represents the most severe violation OSHA can levy, claiming the employer deliberately ignored OSHA safety rules and regulations and disregarded the employee’s health and safety.

OSHA fined Eastern Constructors over $160,000 after finding that the failing lifeline was not capable of resisting sharp edges as intended. Eastern Constructors, according to OSHA, did not follow mandatory safety protocols like inspecting the lifesaving equipment prior to each use, and allowing Gamboa to use a body harness that was defective and showed “notable indicators of damage and deterioration.”

The agency also added the contractor to its Severe Violator Enforcement Program , a list of employers who demonstrate repeated indifference to their obligation to provide a safe and healthful workplace for their employees.

In November, Eastern Constructors contested the fine. The OSHA case remains open, and investigation documents will not be publicly available until the case is closed.

In the wake of the OSHA ruling, HMGMA said it would end work with Eastern Constructors. HMGMA confirmed on Aug. 8 that the company had been removed from the site.

‘Significant delay in patient contact and care ‘

Emergency medical workers airlifted another injured worker from the construction site on Feb. 16, 2024, after he fell 15 to 20 feet from a platform, according to EMS reports.

But first, the medics had to find the injured worker on the 3,000 acre site.

When EMS arrived at the main security building, no one was there to lead them across the sprawling site to the patient. No one at the security office was aware of the incident at all, the firefighters on the scene wrote in their report.

The crew was halfway to the main assembly building when a white Dodge Ram waved them down and showed them to the warehouse where the injured worker was. Still, the fire fighters reported that “it was obvious the guy leading us was unsure where the patient was.”

Eventually, by following the sounds of “commotion,” the medics found the worker lying on his back in a “stupor-like state,” near unconsciousness, according to the EMS report. He was surrounded by 20 to 30 site workers, blood leaking from the back of his head and left ear.

When evaluating the worker, EMS found no signs of a safety harness.

The warehouse where the medics found the injured man was too cramped for the ambulance and team to provide the most efficient care, according to the EMS report.

While the medics worked, the site workers approached the first responders.

As EMS strapped and secured the injured man onto the backboard and stretcher, those employees encircled them, shouting for them to hurry and trying to touch the patient while the EMS crew tried to “complete appropriate life sustaining treatment.”

Once in the ambulance, EMS reported that “multiple site workers got in the ambulance and had to be asked to leave multiple times.” EMS allowed one “friend/co-worker” to ride in the ambulance to translate for the patient.

“All of these things listed above posed a significant delay in patient contact and care,” the EMS worker wrote.

The injured worker was transferred to a LifeStar emergency helicopter and taken to Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah.

EMS and fire department reports reviewed by The Current redacted the injured worker’s name due to privacy reasons. The documents do not indicate where he worked. None of the Hyundai affiliates at the construction site publicly confirmed the injury.

OSHA records show the agency opened an inspection into an incident related to a fall at a HMGMA assembly building on Feb. 21. However, because the OSHA case is still open, it remains unclear whether this OSHA case was in response to the Feb. 16 incident detailed by the EMS reports. The only time before Feb. 21 that first responders provided care for a fall injury at the Hyundai site was September 2023.

In the Feb. 21 case, OSHA found that contractor Sungwon Georgia Corp. committed two serious violations and fined the company $22,000 for exposing workers to 15-foot fall hazards without an anchored fall arrest system.

Sungwon is appealing the fine, and the case is still open. The Current attempted to reach Sungwon, but the company did not respond.

HMGMA did not answer a question from The Current about whether it is still contracting with Sungwon Georgia Corp.

‘Patient was taken to Trauma 1 ‘

Two other workers fell and were injured on Sept. 23, 2023, and March 21, 2024, according to EMS records. First responders found one man lying face down after falling from a crane, and the other sustained an “obvious” broken arm after being flung from a boom lift 30 feet in the air. EMS drove the injured workers to Memorial Hospital for treatment.

Neither incident dates appear in OSHA inspection data nor does OSHA report any inspection at the site within a month of each injury. It’s unclear which subcontractor employed the men.

Five other traumatic injuries occurred in instances logged by EMS and fire services in which workers were struck by heavy objects. In October 2023, for example, a steel beam deeply cut a worker’s shin. In another incident, in December 2023, a steel beam fell on a worker and mangled his leg.

In January, a worker was struck between the eyes with a metal pipe while working in the basket of a lift. When EMS arrived his limbs were numb and unmoving after falling backward into the basket.

In December 2023, a worker’s leg was run over by a forklift and, in February 2024, another’s foot was crushed by scissor lift.

The identities of these workers were redacted in the EMS and fire department records reviewed by The Curren t. OSHA’s inspection database shows no record of inspections at the site within a week of these accidents.

‘Machine started and pinned the patient ‘

By the end of May, construction at the Hyundai GLOVIS facility, the site’s logistics provider, had progressed far enough to install and test a conveyor belt.

A 40-year-old Korean-speaking worker employed by SFA Engineering Corp., a South Korean commercial equipment manufacturer, was part of the team tasked to complete the job.

On May 31, as the technician was working, the machinery suddenly sprang to life. It’s still unclear how or why. OSHA has not made any public statements about the incident.

Word immediately spread at the facility that a man was trapped in the machinery’s gnashing jaws.

Rushing to the scene, a manager called 911, asking for emergency medical help.

First responders arrived 15 minutes later. They reported that the technician was lying on his left side, wedged between two pieces of the machine, and going in and out of consciousness.

The man bled uncontrollably from his left thigh, where the machine had torn his flesh away from the bone. His right hand was “deformed,” and his skin stripped away, exposing mangled bones, tendons, and muscle beneath.

“What’s his name?” How old is he?” an EMS worker shouted. He later wrote in his report that he couldn’t understand the workers who had encircled the victim, as most of them spoke in Korean.

The first responders placed two tourniquets high and tight on his leg and arm, slowing the bleeding long enough for a team of Bryan County firefighters to pry his body from the machine.

The man’s chest was crushed, and was possibly suffering from a collapsed lung, the EMS crew told the 911 dispatcher. Paramedics plunged a decompression needle into the technician’s chest, listening as the air escaped through the catheter.

After 37 minutes of on-site triage, a LifeStar helicopter arrived and transported the worker to Memorial Hospital, the nearest Level 1 trauma center.

There, hospital workers admitted him by a trauma name, a combination of phonetic letters chosen at random to differentiate him from the other John Does in the Memorial Hospital emergency room.

The airlift did not go unnoticed — but neither Hyundai Metaplant nor Hyundai GLOVIS revealed details of the accident.

On June 3, HMGMA released a statement. A man had been treated for severe internal and external injuries and was in stable condition, the statement said.

The cause of injury, it said, remained under investigation.

The public OSHA documentation about the May 31 accident is sparse. OSHA classified the conveyor belt injury as an “amputation.” The agency’s Savannah office ended the onsite portion of the inspection June 5.

HMGMA and Hyundai GLOVIS together cooperated with the OSHA investigation, the company told The Current . The GLOVIS facility stopped work as soon as the incident was reported, the company said.

Two months later, however, OSHA has not issued any violations or fines to the subcontractor. HMGMA confirmed to The Current that the technician was still receiving medical treatment.

Though HMGMA cut ties with Eastern Constructors Incorporated after Gamboa’s death, the company declined to comment on whether any other subcontractors involved in traumatic worker injuries have been removed from the site or reprimanded in any way.