OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #809368
CLOTHING,SEVERED,FRACTURE,WIRE ROPE,DRUM,CAUGHT BY,EXCAVATOR,ENTANGLED,LEG
Event description
Employee's leg severed when entangled in wire rope
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 was operating a 1976 Bucyrus-Erie, model 25B, dragline excavator whe and drum. During the next revolution, the wire rope crossed over Employee #1's u pper thigh, and when it became tight against the drum, it severed his left leg b elow the knee. His right leg sustained a compound fracture when it contacted the drag drum. n the 3/4 in. wire slipped out of the front drag drum groove because the bucket was overextended. This caused a backlash. Employee #1 set the bucket down and ex ited the operator's station, leaving the engine running. He placed himself in fr ont of the boom near the drag drum and reached through the cab window with his l eft hand to activate the control that turns the drum, while attempting to align the wire rope back into the drum's groove with his foot. As the drum rotated, th e cable tightened, caught Employee #1's pant leg, and pulled his leg forward tow ard the drum. The wire rope then caught his foot and pulled it between the wire
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 58 M
- Nature of injury
- 1
- Part of body
- 16
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 24
- Occupation code
- 853
- Human factor
- 18
- Environmental factor
- 1
- 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.