OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #694562

VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE & STATE UNIVERSITY

BLACKSBURG, VA· 1987-10-23T00:00:00

Event: CLOTHING, AMPUTATED, INADEQUATE MAINT, ROTATING SHAFT, WORK RULES, EQUIPMENT OPERATOR, CAUGHT BY, BOLT, AUGER, ARM
NAICS: 000000
Inspection type: Accident-driven
Activity number: #105704845
Employer profile: VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE & STATE UNIVERSITY
Summary number: 694562
Report ID: 355118

Event description

Employee's arms amputated by rotating auger drive shaft

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 and a coworker were drilling post holes for a fence. Employee #1 was operating a homemade post hole auger from a Ford 4610 tractor. The auger was du ll and would not drill the hard soil. He got down from the tractor and with the auger still operating pushed on the auger for additional digging force. His clot hing became caught by an extended bolt in a universal joint of the auger drive s haft, which was turning approximately 1600 rpm. Employee #1's arms were pulled o ff just below the shoulders and he was hospitalized.

Victim

#1 Hospitalized Age 35 M

Nature of injury
1

Part of body
2

Event type
2

Source
26

Occupation code
859

Human factor
1

Environmental factor
2

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.