Inspection Detail

Inspection: 125948018 - Pomona Box Company

Inspection Information - Office: Santa Ana District Office

Investigation Summary

On April 20, 2005, Employee #1 worked for a company that manufactured wood boxes, grates, pallets and corrugated cartons. Employee #1 had been trained to un-load and stack sawed lumber on to pallets for storage. He was also given instructions by a coworker on feeding lumber into a Turner 42-inch tandem twin band resaw Number R-42. The feeding process consists of a flat table with four 6-in. diameter by 12-ft tall feed rollers. As lumber is placed in-between the rolls, the rolls mechanically activate and squeeze against the lumber to insure a powerful, positive feed which then pulls the lumber into the two tandem saw blades approximately 4 ft away. The saw is capable of multiple sawing configurations and was set up to saw two pieces of lumber at once. Employee #1 picked up two pieces of 2-in. by 8-in. lumber and stacked them together. He was placing them on edge in-between the feed rolls when he mishandled the lumber. He unknowingly placed his left ring and middle finger tips in-between the two boards as the rolls squeezed the lumber together crushing his finger tips. The feeding action pulled his hand into the rolls, which ground off the inside of his left thumb. In pain and desperation, Employee #1 pulled himself free leaving his finger tips between the two boards and in shock ran out of the building. He was hospitalized where surgical amputation of the left ring and middle finger tips at the first knuckle and skin grafting were performed.

Keywords: WOOD CHIPS, AMPUTATED, FINGER, CAUGHT BY, SAW, CAUGHT BETWEEN, NIP POINT