Accident Report Detail
Accident Summary Nr: 202363255 - Two of Employee's Fingers Are Degloved by Printing Press
Inspection Nr | Date Opened | SIC | NAICS | Establishment Name |
---|---|---|---|---|
310919881 | 03/16/2007 | 2752 | 323110 | Pacemaker Press, Inc |
Abstract: On March 13, 2007, Employee #1 was working for a lithographic process printer. On the day of the accident, Employee #1 and his coworker, the press foreman, were "webbing a press," which is the process of feeding paper back in between a press's compression and blanket cylinders and then into the rollers and cylinders of the press tower units. They were doing this on press Number 222 after the paper had torn while the machine was printing. Employee #1 started to web the press at the first tower unit by tearing the paper diagonally. This technique created a corner to feed the paper in between the compression and blanket cylinders and then the rollers on the back side of the tower. Employee #1 stated that this process required two workers. Accordingly, he and the pressman who was supervising him at the time would rotate positions at each tower unit as they continued to feed each tower unit in succession with the same procedure. Once the paper was ready with the diagonal corner torn to start feeding the paper, it was necessary to jog the compression and blanket cylinder in order to start the feed of the webbing process. Once the paper was started, someone went around to the back side of the tower unit to ensure that the paper continued to feed upwards into the rest of the rollers and cylinders. Then the process was repeated at the next tower unit down the line. The press had a total of eight tower units in all that were to be webbed in order to get the paper fed back through the press. Only then could operations be restarted. When Employee #1 and the supervising pressman started to feed the paper into the first unit, Employee #1 pressed the jog button to inch the paper forward. The paper lunged as it started to feed, and the index finger and thumb of his left hand were caught between the compression and blanket cylinders. Some skin and muscle tissue were removed. On the index finger, the degloving went all the way to the bone. Employee #1 was transported by ambulance to a helicopter landing site near the facility, from which he was airlifted by the Maryland State Police to Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore. He was treated for his injuries, but he was released without hospitalization. Several months of rehabilitation and therapy would be necessary before he could fully recover the use of his finger and thumb.
Employee # | Inspection Nr | Age | Sex | Degree of Injury | Nature of Injury | Occupation |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 310919881 | Hospitalized injury | Cut/Laceration | Printing machine operators |