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 #14466494

CHEST,GRINDER,PORTABLE POWER TOOL,WORK RULES,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,STRUCK BY,FLYING OBJECT,GRINDING WHEEL,UNGUARDED

Event
CHEST,GRINDER,PORTABLE POWER TOOL,WORK RULES,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,STRUCK BY,FLYING OBJECT,GRINDING WHEEL,UNGUARDED
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14466494
Report ID
626300

Event description

Employee killed by piece of broken grinding wheel

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was using an air-powered portable right-angle grinder with a 0.25-in .-thick, Type 27 specialty grinding wheel. He was cutting through a spot weld to separate two 4-in.-wide steel beams so that holes could be drilled in them. Emp loyee #1 was leaning over the beam, holding the grinder in a vertical position, when the grinding wheel broke. A section of the wheel struck him in the chest, k illing him. The grinder was not equipped with a safety guard. The model and bran d of the grinder were not marked and were not known.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 43 M

    Nature of injury
    7
    Part of body
    5
    Event type
    1
    Source
    21
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    9
    Environmental factor
    6
    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.