Inspection Detail

Inspection: 126080795 - National Labor Services Inc

Inspection Information - Office: Long Beach District Office

Investigation Summary

Employee #1 was working as a shredder feeder at L.A. Fiber, a company that purchased discarded clothing and shredded it into fibers. He was blending material placed in Praito Dell-Orco Villiani Italia shredder #1 by dropping it onto a moving conveyor table that sent the material into the picker shredder. The material was then sucked into an overhead air duct that sent it into the condenser unit. The shredding machine consisted of three large cylinders studded with progressively more pins--35,000, 55,000, and 75,000--that shredded the clothing into fibers as it passed through them. On the day of the accident, Employee #1 started work at 7:00 p.m. and at some point during the evening he noticed that the materials were not being sucked into the overhead ducts as usual. When he returned from lunch at 12:30 a.m., Employee #1 climbed to the upper level adjacent to condenser #1, line #1, and above the hopper, to see why the materials were not passing through the overhead ducts as quickly as usual. He noticed a long piece of material stuck on the condenser belt and attempted to manually clear the debris. As he did this, the assistant operator turned on the machine, unaware that Employee #1 was on its upper level. Employee #1's left hand was pulled into the moving belt, amputating his thumb. He was taken to Stacy Medical Center, where doctors evaluated his injury and told the employer that they were not equipped to handle it. Emergency Services was summoned and transported Employee #1 to the USC Medical Center. He was stabilized there and then transported to Downey Surgical Center, where his thumb was surgically reattached. Employee #1 did not lockout the machine before trying to clear the jam, and he did not use an extension tool.

Keywords: AMPUTATED, WORK RULES, THUMB, JAMMED, LOCKOUT, CAUGHT BETWEEN, EXTENSION HANDLE, NIP POINT, COMMUNICATION