OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #601518

BURN,TORCH,CAUGHT BETWEEN,LOADER,ARM,HAND,CUTTING AND BURNING,HOPPER,RAM

1988-07-13T00:00:00

Event: BURN,TORCH,CAUGHT BETWEEN,LOADER,ARM,HAND,CUTTING AND BURNING,HOPPER,RAM
Linked inspection: No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number: 601518
Report ID: 420600

Event description

Employee's arm caught in mobile refuse compaction equipment

Investigation abstract

At approximately 12:50 p.m. on June 25, 1988, Employee #1 and a coworker were on a refuse collection route using a Touxmore 20 yard side-loader collection and c ompaction unit mounted on a Ford truck. The coworker was operating the deadman p acking ram controls. While the packer ram was moving, Employee #1 threw trash in to the hopper ahead of the ram. He apparently dropped a trash can in the hopper and when he tried to retrieve it with his left hand, his arm was caught between the ram and the hopper wall. Employee #1 was hospitalized with soft tissue injur ies to his upper arm, and burns caused by a torch used by rescuers who had to cu t a hole in the side of the hopper to free him.

Victim

#1 Hospitalized Age 30 M

Nature of injury
3

Part of body
22

Event type
2

Source
27

Occupation code
999

Human factor
1

Environmental factor
4

Hazardous substance
8880

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.