Abstract: At 7:30 a.m. on July 30, 2002, Employee #1, a technician for Younger Manufacturing Company, was operating a Northeast Equipment Design, Inc., optical lens forming machine that was situated on a raised table in the company's polycarbonate section. The machine was a heat-forming press that pulled plastic from a roll, cut it to size, then performed an initial lens forming step at an operating temperature of up to 130 degrees C (266 degrees F). Employee #1 was manually adjusting a misaligned piece of plastic in the forming press when the upper plate descended on his hands, crushing and burning both of them. His tendons were torn and his right wrist burned to the extent of requiring a skin graft. The machine had not been de-energized or disengaged to prevent movement before Employee #1 attempted the adjustment. The access door to the forming press had an interlock switch, but the acting process manager of the department had disabled the interlock when the machine was installed in June. The machine's moving parts were guarded behind plexiglass.