Inspection Detail

Inspection: 1532866.015 - Great Lakes Cheese, Inc.

Inspection Information - Office: Appleton Area Office

Investigation Summary

At 10:30 p.m. on May 17, 2021, an employee working as a machine operator for a cheese manufacturer noticed a coworker having problems with a slab cutter on Line 11. The coworker was pushing a new block of cheese through the cutter. As the block went through the harp wires, the coworker noticed that one of the harp wires had snapped. The wire did not come out of the block and his initial attempts to pull the wire out had failed. When the employee saw what was going on he came over to help the coworker with the jam. The employee asked the coworker to step back because he was going to move the ram forward and attach the broken wire to the ram. The employee stated that he was going to use the ram to pull the wire free of the block. The employee then activated the ram in automatic mode and waited for the ram to come close enough to attach the wire. As the ram was moving, the employee attempted to attach the wire but did not have enough time and was not able to remove his hand before the ram traveled all the way forward. The ram pinched the employee's forearm between the ram and the frame of the slab cutter. The employee was hospitalized to treat a fractured forearm requiring pins.

Keywords: Arm, Caught Between, Crushed, Cutter, Cutting, Engineering Controls, Food processing, Forearm, Fracture, Hand, Jammed, Lack of Engineering Controls, Lockout, Lockout/Tagout, Machine Guarding, Machine operator, Malfunction, Mech Malfunction, Metal Wire, Misjudgment, Misjudgment of Hazardous Situation, Pin, Pinch Point, Pinched, Point Of Operation, Power Press, Press, Ram