Inspection Detail

Inspection: 303612238 - Genpak Corporation

Inspection Information - Office: Utah Division Of Occupational Safety And Health

Investigation Summary

Employee #1, a novice winder operator, fractured her elbow while wrapping a foam sheet around the rotating spool. She was using the spool of a Gloucester Extruder machine. The spool continually rotates quite rapidly to wrap extruded foam sheets into a large roll. Once the roll has reached the desired size, the operator must tear the foam sheet. Then, the operator must remove the roll of foam and wrap the feeding foam sheet around the rotating spool to start a new roll. As Employee #1 was attempting to wrap the foam sheet around the rotating spool, the foam sheet wrapped around the spool and caught her hand between the foam sheet and the spool. She broke her arm when the rotating spool flipped over. Her supervisor was standing a few feet from her and immediately hit the emergency stop button to stop the spool. She was taken to a local hospital, where it was determined that a piece of her distal humorous bone (the elbow) had fractured. Employee #1 was new at operating the spool and was being trained on operating the machine. This was the first shift where she had operated the machine by herself, although closely supervised. She was aware that her hand could be caught in the winding roll of foam because she experienced this before. Usually, the foam rips easily or the employee hits the emergency stop before any harm is done.

Keywords: FRACTURE, ROTATING PARTS, ELBOW