Inspection Detail

Inspection: 1464676.015 - Reser'S Fine Foods

Inspection Information - Office: San Diego District Office

Investigation Summary

At 10:50 a.m. on Monday, February 17, 2020, an employee was working for a firm that manufactured perishable prepared food. He worked as a machine operator at a food processing plant. He was a regular employee of the employer. He worked a daily shift from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., when the food was processed. After that, an evening shift came in to perform cleaning and sanitizing. The employee was the facility's processing room A, mixing a spinach and artichoke dip in mixer number 1, a horizontal food-mixing machine. The mixer was a horizontal metal cylinder with two rotating augers side by side along its length. The main ingredients were dropped into the horizontal mixer using a column dumper, a hoisting apparatus that lifted a metal bin of the raw materials and tilted it into the open top of the mixer. At one end of the mixer was a discharge chute, through which the augers pushed the completed food product into a waiting bin. A work platform about 3 feet (0.9 meters) high allowed the operator to pour materials through a grated top gate over the mixer basin. Dry materials could be dumped into the mixer through large openings in the top of the closed gate, or the gate could be opened as needed. The employee had finished a batch, but there was still a small amount of material left in the mixer. He came down from the platform and, passing the control panel, thought he hit the "off" switch. He reached into the discharge opening from above. The auger was still turning. It crushed the end of the middle finger of the employee's left hand. The end of the finger was amputated from the distal phalanx. The employee was treated without hospitalization. Although there were coworkers nearby, nobody witnessed the incident. The employee's immediate supervisor was onsite but in the office at the time. Surveillance video captured the event. The incident resulted from a lack of guarding of the auger at the discharge chute. A serious accident-related violation of 4542(b) was issued.

Keywords: Amputated, Amputation, Auger, Caught By, Caught In, Finger, Food Preparation, Food processing, Hopper, Instantaneous amputation, Lockout, Lockout/Tagout, Machine Guarding, Machine operator, Mixer, Reach, Reaching, Rotating Parts, Training, Unguarded