Kansas City, Mo. ? Federal workplace regulators on Thursday fined a Missouri bridge-painting company $2.36 million for safety violations they said led to two fatal falls from a Kansas City bridge earlier this year.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration charged Thomas Industrial Coatings Inc. with 41 violations of federal safety rules, including 31 the agency considered “willful,” or intentional violations.

Dan Denzer, 47, of Arkansas, died after falling through a hole in a platform while painting the underside of the four-lane Lexington Avenue bridge. Andy Wilson, 49, died after falling from the bridge while dismantling a scaffold.

Thomas Industrial Coatings already was facing $64,000 in fines from OSHA for a similar accident that killed Jimmy Belfield, a 39-year-old Cadet resident who fell to his death in St. Louis on Feb. 17.

“Three fatalities in five months show gross plain indifference to employee safety,” said Edwin Foulke Jr., assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, in a statement. “Employers must ensure that their workers are protected from unsafe working conditions.”

A phone call to Thomas Industrial Coatings, based in Pevely, was not immediately returned.

The company has 15 days to accept or decide to fight the citations, OSHA said.

OSHA said the company failed to provide fall protection, didn’t train employees about safety, allowed debris on the scaffolding that could trip workers, didn’t design the scaffold correctly, didn’t inspect the scaffold and didn’t secure suspension cables properly.

They were among six deadly falls this year by workers painting Missouri bridges, illustrating the need for safety harnesses in such occupations, officials said.

Safety regulations require some construction and maintenance workers to wear harnesses for such work, but many people in the business shun them.

Thomas Industrial Coatings said in a statement issued this summer that the company has long required its workers to follow safety regulations and would emphasize those rules again. OSHA rules make employers responsible for the use of safety harnesses.