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 #601948

GRINDER,HEART,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,LACERATION,STRUCK BY,FLYING OBJECT,BLADE

Event
GRINDER,HEART,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,LACERATION,STRUCK BY,FLYING OBJECT,BLADE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
601948
Report ID
420600

Event description

Employee killed when struck by flying grinder blade

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was employed by a sub-contractor pouring the concrete slabs for priv ate homes. He was using a hand-held 5 in. angle grinder with a motor rated at 10 ,000 rpm. The guard had been removed. A 12 in. by 1/8 in. by 7/8 in. concrete cu tting blade with a label stating "Do not exceed 6,3000 rpm" was mounted on the g rinder, which was being used to cut down 5 in. of the concrete slab for the hous e/garage side door. After nine cuts had been made the blade shattered, and a sec tion struck Employee #1 in the chest, lacerating his heart and killing him.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 33 M

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