"she does not have her right arm up to the shoulder"

 

The importance of regular periodic machine guarding is sometimes overlooked by workplaces. Here is a recent incident highlighting the importance of machine guarding.

In (city name omitted) aluminum plant, a 41-year-old woman's arm was torn off at work. The incident happened one afternoon in September 2024. The hydrometallurgist operator was cleaning the equipment, caught the sleeve of her overalls on the low-speed shaft of the mixing device, where her hand was pulled. The victim's son told (news media) that the woman did not have a right arm up to her shoulder, her left arm was seriously injured, and her eye was injured, and the worker also received a concussion.

"Mom was admitted to the emergency room only at 14:40, although the tragedy occurred at 13:53. I didn't find out about what had happened until 6:30 p.m. None of the managers tried to report this situation," the son said. "The main cause of injuries was the violation of working conditions and safety for employees. The equipment was repaired. The shaft had a changed design, which in fact should not have been. The spikes were welded by the workers not according to the rules. As a result, my mother hooked the sleeve of the work uniform and was left without an arm.

After the incident, the victim was briefly put into an artificial coma and connected to a ventilator. Now she is conscious and breathing on her own. According to the son, his mother remembers how everything happened.

"The emergency led to a hand injury. The victim received first aid, she was taken to the hospital. A full examination is underway to rule out other damage. The woman will be provided with all the necessary medical care, including high-tech, if the doctors make such a decision, the plant said.

The (pertinent government safety organization) is also conducting an inspection.

We offer our sincere prayers to the injured worker. We offer our sincere prayers for her son and her family while she recovers. We hope that the aluminium company will be able to find a position for her to do with the same pay rate.

We would be remiss if we did not mention that we post this and every incident to bring awareness and we pray to prevent a recurrence. We hope that workplaces will use this horrific incident

A machinery guarding audit should have identified this hazard. It is unknown if the workplace had a program for machinery guarding auditing or not. Another news media article stated that maintenance had previously worked on the coupling. Which stated, “After repairing the shaft, its design was changed, spikes were welded to it not according to the rules, because of this, the woman caught on the sleeve”. We question if the maintenance procedure was approved or was done “as needed” without prior approval.

There have been several articles regarding this topic. They can be found here.

 

 

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