What happened?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The UK Health & Safety Executive (UK HSE) reports that a company was fined after a worker suffered a serious hand injury after a machinery incident. The incident occurred when his hand became entangled with the rotating workpiece of a manually operated metalwork lathe. The resulting injury later requiring surgical amputation to part of his left index finger.<\/p>\n

What went wrong? What were the causes<\/strong><\/p>\n

An investigation by the UK HSE found that:<\/p>\n

\n
• The machine operators were using an unsafe system of work;<\/li>\n
• The company failed to identify if workers were routinely using this dangerous work practice;<\/li>\n
• The lathe used by the injured person had a faulty emergency footbrake – and this had been reported to the company earlier, but the lathe had not been taken out of service.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  What lessons were learnt?<\/strong><\/p>\n

  \n
  • The company failed to identify that employees were routinely carrying out an unsafe work practice when hand applying emery cloth to a workpiece rotating at speed;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    The company had failed to take the faulty lathe out of service.<\/p>\n

    Members may wish to review the following incidents:<\/p>\n

    Machine guarding<\/a><\/p>\n

    Serious hand injury during use of deck scaler<\/a><\/p>\n

    Entanglement in moving or rotating machinery<\/a> – a timely reminder of the risks of entanglement in moving or rotating machinery from the United States Coast Guard (USCG).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    What happened? The UK Health & Safety Executive (UK HSE) reports that a company was fined after a worker suffered a serious hand injury after a machinery incident. The incident […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","tags":[],"safety_event_tag":[97,108],"class_list":["post-12628","safety-events","type-safety-events","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n