OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #890756
WORK RULES,SAW,LACERATION,STRUCK BY,BLADE,HAND,UNGUARDED
Event description
Employee's hand cut by rotating blades
Investigation abstract
At approximately 9:45 a.m. on April 27, 1989, Employee #1, the operator of a Pen reached into the equipment while the blades were still rotating. His left hand contacted the moving blades, resulting in severe lacerations, for which he was h ospitalized. The doors that protect the blades are inadequate because they can b e opened in seconds, exposing the operator to rotating blades even after the pow er is disengaged. du saw system, pushed the emergency STOP button to de-energize the equipment. Th e system, which contains gang saw blades on two horizontal shafts, was being use d to rip 2 in. thick lumber into smaller widths. The employee needed to remove a piece of broken board and he opened the doors protecting the blades to reach in and retrieve it. Because there is no braking system for these gang saw blades, they continue to rotate for as long as one minute after the STOP button has been pushed. Employees are required to wait until the blades have come to a complete stop before entering the equipment. Employee #1 did not obey this work rule and
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 56 M
- Nature of injury
- 7
- Part of body
- 12
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 26
- Occupation code
- 727
- Human factor
- 14
- Environmental factor
- 3
- Hazardous substance
- 8880
- 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.