A Slatington fireworks company has been fined nearly $15,000 as the result of an explosion that caused an employee to lose parts of both hands.

Celebration Fireworks Inc. 7911 Seventh St., was fined by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration due to the eruption in June, according to a summary of violations.

The fireworks company was initially fined $21,187 on Nov. 14 for three violations that were broken into 10 corrective actions, OSHA said.

An informal settlement, reached Dec. 8, lowered that figure to $14,831, according to the summary.

The inspection isn’t closed, though, because some of the corrective actions have completion dates through this month.

At 7:30 a.m. June 30, Kristina Steets, of Lehighton, was inserting a match fuse into a fireworks charge when the fireworks exploded and both of the employee’s hands were amputated, the accident investigation summary shows.

A GoFundMe account was set up for her to go toward paying the costs of her operations and recovery.

Contacted Friday afternoon, John Kemps, owner and president of Celebration Fireworks Inc., said, “We agree with the OSHA findings for the most part, and we’re in the process of creating some written documentation that we didn’t have previously.”

Kemps added. “And to do that, we’ve hired Lancaster Safety on a five-year contract, and we’re working with them now to work on the documentation that OSHA is requiring.”

However, Kemps refuted an aspect of the OSHA report that states both of the victim’s hands were amputated.

Kemps said that part of the report was inaccurate, adding, “She lost a pinky on her right hand, and all five fingers on her left hand.”

“The employee is doing better,” he said. “She’s still coming out of the effects of an induced coma, but she’s doing better.”

In the meantime, Kemps said his company continues to move forward.

“It was a tragic accident, of course,” he said. “We’re going to do whatever we have to do to make sure something like that will never happen again.”

Kemps added, “There are measures that we can put in place that we can reduce the likelihood of another similar accident to an even smaller number. “We’re working on reducing those probabilities.”

“We’re busy preparing for 2018,” he said. “We have a lot of work to do in preparation for spring.”