OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #824102
FINGER,WORK RULES,CAUGHT BY,CIRCULAR SAW,SAW,LACERATION,BLADE,UNTRAINED,UNGUARDED
Event description
Employee's fingers cut by circular saw blade
Investigation abstract
On May 7, 1986, Employee #1, a general mill helper, was assigned a nonroutine ta il approximately 6 in. of length remained to be cut, the employee would step fro m the operator's position to the left-hand corner of the saw table, reach beyond the saw blade, grasp the lumber and pull the remaining length through. He had d one this several times when the hand-held push guide slipped and the first three fingers of his right hand contacted the saw. He was taken to the hospital, wher e his fingers were stitched and he remained for three days. Employee #1 had rece ived no training except for the single instruction given by his supervisor. The company does have a side-attaching cover guard for the saw blade that was not in use at the time of the accident. Management stated that pressure will be put on supervisory personnel and employees to always use this guard. Company owners wi sk of ripping scrap lumber pieces into 3/8 in. wide pieces to be used as tempora ll be encouraged to install an adjustable hood guard with spreader and kickback toes to prevent any further injuries. ry braces on door assemblies in the mill area. He was instructed by his supervis or to use a hand-held push guide to push the lumber through the saw blade. The s upervisor set the saw's table guide to 3/8 in. for the needed cut and demonstrat ed the process to the employee. The saw blade was unguarded and lacked a spreade r or kickback toes. Employee #1, who was wearing safety goggles, began hand feed ing the approximately 6 in. wide by 6 to 7 ft long pieces of lumber through the saw blade, pushing them with the hand-held guide. Once the lumber was pushed unt
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 17 M
- Nature of injury
- 7
- Part of body
- 10
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 26
- Occupation code
- 889
- Human factor
- 9
- Environmental factor
- 13
- Task assigned
- 2
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.