Articles Tagged with ''machine guarding''

A complaint about a partial thumb amputation brought federal inspectors to Liqui-Box Corporation of Ashland, Ohio, where they found violations of the agency’s machine safety standards.

A 57-year-old maintenance worker was crushed fatally by a 4,000 pound machine part while performing maintenance inside of a sand core machine at a Montana aluminum foundry.

The death of a Tonawanda Coke Corp. employee who was pulled into the rotating shaft of a coal elevator on Jan. 6, 2016, could have been prevented, an inspection by OSHA’s Buffalo Area Office. As he prepared to grease and lubricate the elevator, the worker's jacket was caught, pulling the man onto the rotating shaft.

Two manufacturing companies were recently cited by OSHA in unrelated incidents for failing to prevent hazards that resulted in two workers losing fingers.

An OSHA investigation launched at a Georgia furniture manufacturing facility after a worker lost part of a finger to a table saw revealed that his employer, Tritter Feefer Home Collection LLC, had removed the safety guards from the saw.

Just one year after a worker amputated part of her right index finger on a spot welding machine at an Osceola, Wisconsin, metal stamping plant, a 19-year-old female co-worker suffered a similar injury on the same machine. OSHA inspectors found that her employer failed to implement safety procedures they agreed upon to protect workers from machine operating parts.

A leading supplier of frozen specialty foods is facing more than $172,000 in OSHA fines after two workers at its Salina, Kansas, facility suffered amputations in separate incidents and a third suffered lacerations and burns.

Employers’ names: Genesis Today Inc. and Texas Management Division Inc., doing business as TMD Temporaries, in Austin, Texas. Citations issued: Nov. 9, 2015.

Amputations are widespread and involve a variety of activities and equipment. Each year, thousands of workers lose fingers, hands, feet, and other body parts–mostly through compression, crushing, or by getting them caught between or struck by objects. Most amputations involve fingertips.

A machine operator who suffered fatal injuries as he serviced a high-speed conveyor belt in a Ladysmith paper mill in October 2015 might still be alive if his employer had ensured that equipment was powered down and locked out before the 46-year-old man entered the hazardous area.