Abstract: On March 13, 2003, Employee #1 was working as an operator engineer for Recycled Base Materials, Incorporated, a company that recycles waste asphalt and concrete into building material using a portable crushing machine. On the day of the accident, the employee was operating the jaw crushing machine at the Vernon facility, when he spotted a hook-shaped-rebar on the moving conveyor belt. It appeared the rebar had somehow passed the magnetic separator and was heading toward the point of operation of the machine. When he grabbed the rebar off the moving belt, his left hand somehow became entangled with the running rollers. He managed to free his hand from the pinch point. However, a tip of his left middle finger was severed. According to Employee #1, the rebar would have eventually ripped the belt off the tail pulley, if he had not attempted to prevent it from going in. He also acknowledged he should not have made the attempt because he knew that he would have violated the company's safety rules. If the belt had been ripped, the belt may have been spliced. This would require extensive amount of down time to fix it. He successfully retrieved the rebar and similar objects many times in the past and had figured this was a quick fix. Employee #1 was not hospitalized.