"serious injuries when his arm became entangled...."

The presence of pillar or pedestal drills in our facilities is commonplace. Their presence in our plants has been for so long that many plants fail to acknowledge the hazard. Their failure to acknowledge is not done with malice. But, in many ways these plants have a false safety belief which is only realized after an incident. Here is a recent story showing the hazard of this machinery:

An engineering firm in the United Kingdom had been fined during the month of September 2016, £10,000 after a worker required a skin graft after he sustained serious injuries when his arm became entangled in a drilling machine.

The worker was operating a pedestal drilling machine to drill holes into some box section tubing. He was adjusting the work piece while the drill was still running when his gloved hand became twisted with the unguarded drill bit.

The local court heard how the worker suffered two broken bones in his right forearm in the incident.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) told the court that injuries could have been prevented if the drill was guarded with a telescopic guard covering the rotating drill bit, the injured person had not been wearing gloves, a suitable and sufficient risk assessment had been completed to identify required control measures and if the employee had received proper training.

The engineering company manufactures equipment for the material handling and logistics sector, admitted breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £2,168.73 in costs.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector, said: “It is vital that companies understand the importance of using suitable guarding when employees are operating drilling machines as there are significant risks involved which may lead to serious personal injury.

“Other simple measures such as not wearing gloves can be taken to eliminate the risk of entanglement involved with operating drilling machines or any other machinery with moving/rotating parts.”

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog prays that the worker recovers fully from his injuries. We hope that this worker will be given physical and mental health counseling to cope with this horrific injury.

A vast majority of pedestal drills in our plants are older in age. It would not surprise us that many pedestal drills are older than the workers that use them. The APSB has always stated that there is nothing wrong with older machinery. But, plants have to acknowledge that older machinery may lack current safety mechanisms. We would recommend that on a regular basis review all machinery in your facility. Any machinery older than 5 years should be identified. Then the make and model of the machinery should be compared to a brand new machine regarding safety mechanisms. If your machine lacks the current safety mechanisms you should consult with the equipment manufacturer on the steps to update your machine.

DO NOT MODIFY OR CHANGE A MACHINE WITHOUT THE ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURERS CONSULTATION AND APPROVAL

There have been numerous incidents that a contributing cause was the modification of equipment. We cannot stress enough please note do not modify, alter, change equipment without consulting the original equipment manufacturer.

Here is a great website about pedestal drill safety: 

http://pillardrillmachine.weebly.com/index.html