Inspection Detail

Inspection: 305355646 - Home Depot

Inspection Information - Office: Santa Ana District Office

Investigation Summary

At approximately 12:35 p.m. on March 20, 2005, Employee # 1 was working in the carpet-wallpaper-drapery area of a store. Workers are trained to operate the Truemeasure 3900, Model 3905-1B-type D-reference 114275/5/48, carpet cutting machine. The cutting blade is completely enclosed. They carry a variety of light, rolled carpeting materials that are cut to customers specifications. The carpet rolls are horizontally set in a steel frame. The Truemeasure carpet-cutting machine sits in a tract that enables workers to easily glide it to the carpet selected by the customer. A customer selected a 12-ft-long piece of carpet that Employee #1 would cut to a 10 ft length. Employee #1 set the Trumeter measure mounted on the top right portion of the carpet-cutting machine for 10 ft and manually fed the carpet from the frame into the starting roller. She entered her assigned code number into the computer. The machine is engaged by foot on a safety cable underneath the machine which is guarded. The carpet rolled to the 10-ft length and she activated the cutter switch on the panel. The cutting blade is totally enclosed by a metal guard that runs the entire length of the machine. She began to wrap a stretch film, Qualis Wrap, A16518R/406.4mm, around the carpet. The stretch film is mounted on the left end of the machine. She pulled the film starting at the left end and controlled the turn of the carpet roll by jogging the safety cable with her foot. She controlled the plastic by placing it between her right index finger and thumb. The shrink wrap stopped rolling and she pulled on it. Her right thumb was caught in the shrink-wrap as the carpet turned, amputating it.

Keywords: AMPUTATED, FINGER, GUARD, FOOT CONTROL, CAUGHT BY, THUMB