OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #1002575
PORTABLE POWER TOOL,WORK RULES,SLIP,LACERATION,SLIPPERY SURFACE,BLADE,UNGUARDED,LEG
Event description
Employee lacerated by powered grass cutter
Investigation abstract
At approximately 8:00 a.m. on February 16, 1989, Employee #1 was using an unguar ded powered tri-blade grass cutter to trim brush. The cutter had an extended han dle and was attached to the employee by a harness across his shoulders and chest . The motor was at his side and the throttle control was located in the handle g rips. Employee #1 slipped on a patch of ice and fell forward. As he fell the cut ter handle swung around and the blade sliced him just above his left ankle. He r eceived several lacerations that required approximately 200 stitches to close. T he employer contends that Employee #1 was using a brush cutter with a guarded ci rcular saw-type blade.
Victim
-
#1 Non-hospitalized injury Age 29 M
- Nature of injury
- 7
- Part of body
- 18
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 21
- Occupation code
- 889
- Human factor
- 20
- Environmental factor
- 17
- Task assigned
- 1
Codes shown verbatim from OSHA's accident-investigation database. A human-readable decoder is coming in a future release once the accident_lookup2 dictionary is loaded.