Worker gets entangled....

The APSB has posted incidents where moving machine parts have caused severe workplace injures. Safeguards are essential for protecting workers from these preventable injuries. Here is another incident that reinforces the need for machine guarding.

A United Kingdom company has been fined after a welder severed a finger on an unguarded drill.

The local magistrate court was told that the company failed to take effective measure to prevent access to dangerous moving parts of the equipment at its premises in the summer of June, 2012.

An investigation by Health and Safety Executive (HSE) established that the injured worker, who does not want to be named, was working alone on a pedestal drill in the company's workshop when the incident happened.

While drilling holes into a section of aluminium, one of the welding gloves he was wearing became entangled in the running drill, which was unguarded.

He was unable to reach the stop button and as he pulled his hand away from the drill he severed the ring finger on his right hand. He was off work for three months, but has since returned.

Magistrates heard that had the drill be suitably guarded the incident could have been avoided. A chuck guard was fitted afterwards to prevent further injuries.

Magistrates also heard that safety guidelines, including the company's own risk assessment, made it clear that wearing certain types of gloves while operating drills posed a danger because of the risk of entanglement.

The company was fined recently of 19,000 pounds including court costs after pleading guilty to a single breach of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 at an earlier hearing. 

An HSE inspector said "Incidents involving entanglement on rotating tools like drills are fairly common, but they are all easily avoided if manufacturers like (company) follow their own risk assessments and provide suitable guarding."

"Such guarding is readily available and inexpensive, so there is no excuse for failing to take action - and to take action before someone is injured"

"The company should also have prevented the use of welding gloves while operating the drill, as they said they would in their risk assessment it is well-known that the risk of entanglement increases if the wrong type of gloves are worn."

Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) information about machine guarding can be found here.

The Health & Safety Executive information about drilling machine safety can be found here.

EHS Today magazine has a useful article on risk assessment on machine guarding. The article can be found here.

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