Jennifer Reyes’ husband, Joseph “Joe” Reyes, died on their 15th wedding anniversary — Sept. 5, 2023 — after he was told to clean a machine while it was still operating at a Middlesex Township plant.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Joe Reyes’ employer, Vorteq Coil Finishers, earlier this week, and Jennifer Reyes said her goal is to ensure this never happens again.

“This is just the beginning of the snowball effect,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to go through what I’ve gone through, because it’s a nightmare.”

Joe Reyes, 46, of Butler was pulled into a chrome roller he was cleaning on a coater machine on Sept. 5 and died of traumatic asphyxiation. He was a supervisor at Vorteq, according to a news release from OSHA about the citations.

According to Jennifer Reyes, her husband loved his job, and would often work overtime at the company which finishes steel and aluminum coils. He had been employed there for four years at the time of his death.

“His crew members loved him. He’d give advice; he didn’t get angry like other supervisors,” she said. “I’m proud of him.”

In fact, Joe Reyes wasn’t granted the supervisor position when he initially went for it, because he was told he was “too nice.”

This was how her husband was in his every day life, according to Jennifer Reyes. She described him as “selfless,” remembering how he nursed her back to health after she was in a motorcycle accident in 2017.

His death showed her how much of an impact he had on so many people, she said.

“I didn’t realize how much he meant to people; I knew what he meant to me and my children,” she said.

The couple have three children, Sidney Lasichak and Kayla and Joey Reyes.

The two met in Atlanta, Ga., when Joe Reyes was working as a tattoo artist. Jennifer Reyes made an appointment at the shop, and according to her, it was love at first sight for both of them.

“I saw him and I said, ‘That’s mine,’” she said. “He was my best friend; we were just kind of inseparable. We did everything together.”

The two were married on an island just off the coast of Savannah, Ga. and remained in the state until a devastating flood.

“We had 22 feet of water on our street, and 13 feet in our house,” she said.

Her husband was able to help save some elderly neighbors during the emergency, but after the ordeal, they decided to move back to Jennifer Reyes’ hometown of Butler.

“He loved Butler,” she said.

For their wedding anniversary on Sept. 5, the day he died, they planned to leave for Myrtle Beach after dinner that night.

Joe Reyes loved to cook, and she would always message him during the day about what their plan was for dinner. On Sept. 5, he didn’t answer.

After not hearing from him, Jennifer Reyes said she reached out to managers at Vorteq who she knew, but no one answered.

She said didn’t know what had happened until she heard about his death on the news, but the unanswered text was the first clue.

“I knew it was my husband,” she said. “I found out it was my husband when I sat down to watch the news.”

Shortly after, Middlesex Township police officers showed up at her door and told her about her husband’s death. The officers stayed with her until a family member could come to comfort her.

Jennifer Reyes said she was upset about not hearing from anyone at Vorteq about what happened.

“These are people that came (to our house) and knew us personally, and that was a kick in the teeth. That was the first kick in the teeth,” she said.

OSHA’s investigation into Joe Reyes’ death began Sept. 6. When Jennifer Reyes learned what happened, she said she never wanted this to happen to anyone else.

According to Jennifer Reyes, the machine Joe Reyes was cleaning when he died is meant to have a guard on it to prevent anyone from cleaning it while it is running. She said the machine that killed her husband didn’t have that guard.

On Monday, OSHA cited Vorteq Coil Finishers for two willful and two serious violations based, in part, on failing to implement lockout/tagout procedures and not installing machine guarding. The agency proposed $345,685 in penalties, and placed the company in its severe violator enforcement program, which subjects the company to mandatory follow-up inspections.

“Vorteq Coil Finishers’ failure to value employee safety created conditions that cost a worker his life,” said Christopher Robinson, director of OSHA’s Pittsburgh office.

“All evidence gathered during the inspection revealed that management employees at the highest level of the plant knew how dangerous it was to clean this machine while it was operating but required employees to do so to minimize downtime and maximize production,” Robinson added.

Vorteq did not respond to requests for comment. The company has 15 business days to comply and submit payment or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

Clayton Smith was a friend of Joe Reyes and former employee of Vorteq, where the two met.

Smith left the company prior to Joe Reyes’ death, and said he heard the news from a former co-worker.

“I thought he was messing with me,” he said. “Because he was like, my best friend. I didn’t want it to be true.”

The manner of Joe Reyes’ death was also hard to take for Smith.

“We’d done that job for how long? I’d done what Joe was doing hundreds of times, I didn’t think about how dangerous it was,” he said. “This doesn’t need to happen to anyone else.”

Jennifer Reyes said her husband’s personality and impact on people means his death can bring about change and better working conditions.

“If this was going to make a difference and stop this from happening, it had to be Joe,” she said. “Because he was a big person with big impact. Anyone else would have been swept under the rug. These people deserve justice. It’s not fair.”