OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #675900
ASTEN DYER FABRICS INC
SALEM, OR·
Event description
Employee killed when crushed in loom's point of operation
Investigation abstract
Employee #1, a technician/loom operator, was in the second night of training ano rols for the loom. Lighting was good. The noise was loud and both men wore heari ng protection. Several times before the accident, the shuttle had incorrectly lo dged itself in its firing box, causing the loom to automatically shut down. The operator repositioned the shuttle and started the loom. When the loom stopped ag ain, the trainee thought that the shuttle was the problem again. He checked the shuttle, found it to be correctly positioned, and then restarted the loom with t he control at his side. As the shuttle started its cycle, he looked down the len gth of the loom and saw Employee #1 slumped over, with his head in the point of operation. Employee #1 then fell backward, with blood flowing from his head. The trainee immediately stopped the loom, but not before Employee #1's head was cru ther employee to operate a loom, which was normally a one-person operation. Empl shed, resulting in instant death. Emergency medical care was called and arrived within minutes, but there was nothing that they could do. Apparently Employee #1 had stopped the loom by activating the control at the end of the loom away from the trainee. He then proceeded to inspect the underside of the fabric by sticki ng his head down between the two metal bars. No eye contact or other form of com munication was established between the two workers. When the loom started again, the point of operation closed on Employee #1's head. Factors contributing to th e accident were the lack of an adequate lockout/tagout system, multiple duplicat e controls, and the failure to establish communication between the two workers. oyee #1 decided that the trainee was fairly competent in operating a loom so Emp loyee #1 began to complete other tasks nearby, while keeping an eye on the train ee's production. The loom was weaving a heavy fabric, a felt, which was approxim ately 20 feet wide. The point of operation included two horizontal metal bars ap proximately 21 feet long, which repeatedly moved back and forth, toward and away from one another, while a shuttle device carrying a strand of thread traveled b ack and forth across the leading edge of the felt. There were three sets of cont
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 40 Male
- Nature of injury
- Concussion (6)
- Part of body
- HEAD (13)
- Accident type
- CAUGHT IN OR BETWEEN (2)
- Source of injury
- MACHINE (26)
- Occupation
- Knitting, looping, taping & weaving mach.operators (739)
- Human factor
- LOCKOUT/TAGOUT PROCED MALFUNC (13)
- Environmental factor
- PINCH POINT ACTION (1)
- Task assigned
- Task regularly assigned (1)
Labels are OSHA's own, from the code dictionary published with the accident-investigation file. The raw code is shown beside each one so this page can be reconciled against OSHA's bulk data. OSHA notes that nature of injury, part of body, source of injury and accident type in this file are not coded to the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System, and that the occupation titles are not standardised — so these values are not directly comparable with the OIICS-coded severe injury reports.