105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14394241

KNIFE,MAINTENANCE,REPAIR,LOSS OF BLOOD,HEMORRHAGE,WORK RULES,PUNCTURE

Event
KNIFE,MAINTENANCE,REPAIR,LOSS OF BLOOD,HEMORRHAGE,WORK RULES,PUNCTURE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14394241
Report ID
625700

Event description

Employee dies after stabbing self with pocket knife

Investigation abstract

Employee #1, a maintenance man employed by a grocery warehouse, was called to re pair a malfunctioning pallet wrapping machine. Instead of using the available to ols in his tool belt, Employee #1 chose to use his personal pocketknife, which h ad a locking blade, to cut the nylon tie wraps in the 7 in. by 9 in. by 13 in. e lectrical control box. Power to the sensor switch control box, model/serial #ACS 489213, had been cut off, eliminating shock hazards. Employee #1 was cutting tow ard himself with force. As the knife finished severing a tie wrap, its momentum caused Employee #1 to stab himself in the chest. He died of internal hemorrhagin g.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 31 M

    Nature of injury
    18
    Part of body
    5
    Event type
    1
    Source
    22
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    2
    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.