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 #14500326

CAUGHT BY,TRASH COMPACTOR

Event
CAUGHT BY,TRASH COMPACTOR
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14500326
Report ID
523400

Event description

EMPLOYEE INJURED WHEN CAUGHT IN TRASH COMPACTOR

Investigation abstract

At about 6:20 p.m. on December 1, 1989, Employee #1 was unloading a wheeled cart y contact). Employee #1 was hospitalized with a fracture. of rubbish into a refuse compactor. The compactor was mounted with the charging chamber opening at floor level. The charging chamber was about 32 in. deep. Emp loyee #1 was standing on the slow horizontal-moving ram and caught her leg or fo ot on a projection while trying to push down a cardboard box. The ram was closin g at the time and the employee was drawn into the compactor container through a 7-inch-high slot above the ram until the cycle stopped the machine. Employee #1 does not remember activating the machine but implied that it may have been set f or automatic cycling (one open-close sequence on activation rather than momentar

Victim

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 51 F

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    11
    Event type
    2
    Source
    26
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    10
    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.