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 #14484885

HEAD,WORK RULES,INTERLOCK,LOCKOUT,CRUSHED,BALER,COMMUNICATION

Event
HEAD,WORK RULES,INTERLOCK,LOCKOUT,CRUSHED,BALER,COMMUNICATION
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14484885
Report ID
213600

Event description

Employee killed when head crushed by tamper platen

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 and a coworker were working at a two-station baling press when the c as no device or control on the hinged guard to prevent operation of the tamper w hile it was open. oworker signaled Employee #1 to stop sending material (shoddy) to the tamper uni t. When the shoddy stopped coming, the coworker shut off the tamper and, with th e help of Employee #1, rotated the load to the baler station before going on his break. While the coworker was on break, Employee #1 climbed the front side of t he tamper unit to an I-beam running horizontally 54 in. above the floor. He open ed the hinged guard and started to clean the top of the tamper platen. When the coworker returned from his break, he activated the tamper unit. The platen rose and struck or crushed Employee #1's head, causing him to fall backwards. There w

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 28 M

    Nature of injury
    6
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    2
    Source
    26
    Occupation code
    758
    Human factor
    4
    Environmental factor
    4
    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.