OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #221441694
DIXON TICONDEROGA COMPANY
NEENAH, WI·
Event description
Employee amputates fingers when contacting moving fan blades
Investigation abstract
At 6:00 a.m. on February 24, 2022, an employee was unjamming the blower for the the infeed side in order to clear the jam. The chipper/blower fan was not shut down nor locked out before entering the equipment. The chipper/blower opening was located approximately 24 inches above the floor. As the employee placed his hand in the machine to unjam it, his hand was sucked in and made contact to the rotating blades inside. The employee quickly yelled for help and was able to pull his hand out. The company provided medical attention before transporting to the emergency room. There were no direct witnesses to the incident but heard the yells after it had occurred. The employee amputated his right fingers. The employee was hospitalized. Kugler-Womako binding machine. The employee was the machine operator for the Kugler-Womako, Machine No. MK00303, which had a Blower Application Co., Equipment 3B attached. The Kugler-Womako put the wire bindings on the sketch pad and utilized paper cardboard to prevent the wire from tangling. The paper cardboard travels through a suction chute to the Blower Application chipper/blower fan where it would be cut into small pieces before proceeding through the line to the final collection point. The chipper/blower fan had clogged with material, so the employee used a screwdriver to remove the hose on
Victim
-
#1 Non-hospitalized injury Age 51 M
- Event type
- 1
- Occupation code
- 889
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.