Inspection Detail

Inspection: 1393653.015 - Carlisle Construction Materials, Llc

Inspection Information - Office: Jackson Area Office

Investigation Summary

At 4:15 a.m. on April 8, 2019, Employee #1, 33-year-old man, was working as a production coordinator for a firm that manufactured rubber roofs. He was helping a maintenance coworker work on an S1 Parkinson Winders Positran roll transfer system. The employee was aligning a winder roller along a track. He was moving the winder roller forward so that his coworker could see where to stop the winder cylinder. The maintenance coworker was positioned on the floor below. The employee was standing on an elevated platform operating the winder movement in a jog speed mode. He had his right hand positioned on a stationary enclosed guard housing, while he operated the control unit with his left hand. As the roll transfer system traveled toward him, the small finger on his right hand became caught between the roll transfer system and the guard housing. He suffered the amputation of the end of that finger. He was not hospitalized. The opening distance between the two was later estimated by a safety inspector to be less than 13 millimeters (0.5 inches). Operators of the roll transfer system worked from the platform and operated the control panel. There was no guarding to protect the area between the stationary guard housing and the roll transfer system. In an interview, an employer representative stated that he walked the plant floor throughout the day and that operators accessed the work platform at last once per shift to align or thread a new roll. Operators used the computer control panel to do this, with the machine in the jog or manual mode. The workers were in this area to align the material from time to time, but it was not a normal activity for them to do that. The safety inspector commented that the area around the roll transfer system had never been guarded. There was a small upright barrier guard on the floor but not at the level where the employee was injured as he aligned the winder roller along the track for his coworker.

Keywords: Amputated, Amputation, Caught In, Finger, Fingertip, Hand, Hand Control, Handrail, Lockout, Machine Guarding, Nip Point, Roller--Mach/Part, Stair