Inspection Detail

Inspection: 309298461 - Merical, Inc

Inspection Information - Office: Santa Ana District Office

Investigation Summary

On March 6, 2007, Employee #1 was working for a wholesale distributor of prescription drugs, proprietary drugs, druggists' sundries, and toiletries. She was not a contract employee. She was working in the part of the firm in which pharmaceutical products were packaged, on packaging line Number 13, running a CAM Partena Model M92 blister packaging machine, with Serial Number M92014. This machine takes in PVC film from a roll, forms cavities in the PVC film using heat and a forming die, and fills the cavities with capsules, tablets, and so forth. It then seals these cavities with another foil material, prints some information, and finally cuts the sealed product into blister cards containing a predesignated number of capsules or tablets. These blister cards fall onto a rotating turn table, where they are further packed manually. The perforated scrap material sheet is routed into a separate bin. At the time of the accident, this scrap material bunched up and jammed the output section of the machine. In order to unjam the material, Employee #1 reached into the machine to pull out the material without stopping the machine. The index finger of her right hand went into the blister card cutting die, and it was partially amputated. Employee #1 amputated about an inch of her right index finger. She was treated in an emergency room and was not hospitalized. Six days after the accident, she also underwent hand surgery as an outpatient.

Keywords: AMPUTATED, DIE CUTTING PRESS, FINGER, CLEANING, CAUGHT BY, JAMMED, LOCKOUT, POINT OF OPERATION, MECH MAT HANDLING