"I felt my arm being pulled into the machine...."

The hazard associated with metal lathes is not acknowledge by many plants in our industry. Here is an incident that reinforces the danger of a piece of equipment that a vast majority of plants currently have and use on a daily basis.

In March, 2018 WorkSafe was notified of an incident that left an apprentice at a business with "serious lacerations" fearing "he was going to lose his hand", according to WorkSafe's Duty Holder Review files, obtained by a New Zealand newspaper under the Official Information Act.

The employee, whose name was withheld for privacy reasons, had been working for eight and a half hours and was not supervised as he machining a piece of aluminium with a lathe - a machine that changes the shape of metal parts using turning, cutting edges.

"I stopped the machine to check the finish by rubbing my thumb along the aluminium piece. I did this while the machine was slowing down," the employee said in his interview about the accident.

"I felt my arm being pulled into the machine and my immediate reaction was to pull back. I felt the pain, looked at my arm and then ran into the office."

One of the first aiders said he was in a meeting at 4.10 pm when the injured worker came down the hall to the office he was in.

"[A colleague] passed me a Hi-viz to use as a tourniquet while [colleague] and [colleague] grabbed me some towels to apply to the wound. At this stage [injured worker] was in tears saying that he was going to lose his hand."

The company’s internal review, provided to WorkSafe, found that the sleeve of the technician's overalls was caught in the lathe machine, and when he pulled at it he was left with serious lacerations.

The worker had started the third year of his apprenticeship and had completed training so that he did not need supervision for introductory tasks on the lathe, such as the one he was doing when injured.

The review concluded the direct causes of the accident were human error, complacency when completing a task that was not well suited to the lathe, and the worker not having used the lathe in at least six weeks.

We pray that the worker will recover fully from his injuries. We acknowledge the severity of the injury and know that the rehabilitation will be long. We pray that that his family, friends, and coworkers provide the necessary support that he will need.

The problem we observe on our plant tours is that older equipment are not equipped with the latest machinery guards. We always recommend that if your plant has older machinery that you should contact the manufacturer and ask if their older equipment has the latest safety mechanism on it. PLEASE NOTE, do not add safety mechanism on equipment with communicating with the equipment manufacturer.

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