Inspection Detail

Inspection: 316349034 - Repet Inc

Inspection Information - Office: Monrovia District Office

Investigation Summary

At approximately 9:00 a.m. on February 26, 2014, Employee #1, a 22-year-old male material handler, with Kamran Staffing Inc., assigned to work at Repet Inc., was working with another coworker in the mud press area on line number one. Employee #1 transported barrels of mud using a forklift and the coworker assisted in dumping the mud into machine by cranking the barrel. During the process, the mud press became jammed; Employee #1 went to look for a mechanic while the coworker swept the floor. Employee #1 met another coworker and told him that the mud press was stuck and he needed to unjam the machine. Employee #1 went back to the mud press area and tried to unjam the machine by rotating the shaft of mud press using a Kobalt 24-in. pipe wrench, when another coworker came by in a forklift to bring barrels of mud. The coworker on the forklift asked what Employee #1 was doing and he told the coworker that he was trying to unjam the machine. Employee #1 was rotating the bottom shaft as coworker on the forklift was leaving the area. Suddenly the pipe wrench started to spin on the bottom shaft and it flew out toward Employee #1. It hit Employee #1 on his left inner thigh. Employee #1 suffered an unspecified fracture injury as the result of being struck by the wrench. The incident was caused because the equipment was not de-energizing or disengaging from the power source of the machine nor mechanically blocked or locked out to prevent inadvertent movement or release of stored energy. Repet Inc. was a processor of post-consumer PET bottle waste. Employee #1 was a contract worker with Kamran Staffing Inc., who had worked at Repet Inc., since November of 2013.

Keywords: FRACTURE, PIPE WRENCH, LOCKOUT, STRUCK BY, FLYING OBJECT, LEG