OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #890798
DIXON VALVE & COUPLING CO., INC.
CHESTERTOWN, MD·
Event description
EMPLOYEE'S FINGERS AMPUTATED IN HYDRAULIC PRESS ACCIDENT
Investigation abstract
On May 11, 1989, Employee #1, a Parts Operator, was manually feeding 7.125-in. l eleased. Employee #1 was trained how to operate the hydraulic power press and ot her machines by the Threading Department supervisor. ong and 4-in.-diameter steel pipe section into a Hydraser horizontal hydraulic p owered press, code number DO100, that reduced 50 percent of the pipe length to 3 .1875 inches. After placing a pipe section in the danger zone, Employee #1 attem pted to remove a finished section and trapped his fingers between two sections, resulting in an amputation of portions of the four fingers of his left hand. The danger zone of the press ram that exerted 75 tons of hydraulic pressure was not guarded. The press ram with total stroke of 16 in., having one-way movement tim ed at 5.2 seconds was activated by a foot pedal that stopped ram movement when r
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 18 Male
- Nature of injury
- Amputation (1)
- Part of body
- FINGER(S) (10)
- Accident type
- CAUGHT IN OR BETWEEN (2)
- Source of injury
- MACHINE (26)
- Occupation
- Compressing and compacting machine operators (758)
- Human factor
- SAFETY DEVICES REMOVED/INOPER. (9)
- Environmental factor
- PINCH POINT ACTION (1)
- Task assigned
- Task regularly assigned (1)
Labels are OSHA's own, from the code dictionary published with the accident-investigation file. The raw code is shown beside each one so this page can be reconciled against OSHA's bulk data. OSHA notes that nature of injury, part of body, source of injury and accident type in this file are not coded to the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System, and that the occupation titles are not standardised — so these values are not directly comparable with the OIICS-coded severe injury reports.