An employee was operating a dryer kiln when an alarm went off indicating that one of the two limit switches of the centering device control was not functioning properly. In order to reach the centering device control limit switch, the employee used a rod and kneeled down stretching his body/hand forward between the dryer exit and a column of an unloader machine. The employee's body was caught between the exiting tile cart and the column of the unloader machine resulting in fractured ribs.