OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #690875

KNIFE,AMPUTATED,FINGER,GUARD,WORK RULES,THUMB,SET UP,INATTENTION

1986-06-19T00:00:00

Event: KNIFE,AMPUTATED,FINGER,GUARD,WORK RULES,THUMB,SET UP,INATTENTION
Linked inspection: No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number: 690875
Report ID: 854910

Event description

Employee's thumb and finger amputated by book trimmer

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was setting up a McCain automatic three-knife trimmer so that he cou ld trim booklets. He had adjusted the side knives so that they would not make a cut on the booklets. He then opened a guard that covered one of the side knives. Employee #1 ran a booklet through the head knife and decided to check the press ure of the pads on the booklet. As he reached into the side knife and pulled on the booklet, he accidentally jogged the machine. This caused the knives to actua te, amputating a finger and the thumb on his left hand. Employee #1, who had ope rated the machine for approximately 15 years, had failed to use the safety on th e machine.

Victim

#1 Hospitalized Age 58 M

Nature of injury
1

Part of body
10

Event type
2

Source
26

Occupation code
737

Human factor
4

Environmental factor
3

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.