Improved severe injury reporting requirements among US businesses has revealed a disturbing trend: On an average workday in the US, seven employees suffer amputations of their fingers, toes, hands or other body parts.
In 2015, new regulations enacted by the US Department of Labor required US companies to report any serious workplace injury, such as those involving amputations or a worker hospitalization. Prior to then, businesses were only obligated to report accidents involving an employee’s death.
Now that the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration has had time to analyze a full year of data, the agency reported that last year there were 2,644 workplace accidents involving amputations. And through July 31 of this year, there have been 1,500 amputation reports — an average of seven amputations per day for both years.
Targeting Amputations in the Workplace
The new reporting requirement and the trends it reveals allows OSHA to identify problems in order to improve awareness among US businesses and their workers, according to David Michaels, Assistant Secretary for Labor for Occupational Safety. It also has allowed OSHA to go after repeat offenders.
“In case after case, the prompt reporting of work injuries has created opportunities for us to work with employers we wouldn’t have had contact with otherwise,” Michaels said in an OSHA news release revealing the agency’s findings. “The result is safer workplaces for thousands of workers.”
Three Accidents in as Many Months
In February, OSHA issued a $172,000 fine against Schwan’s Global Supply Chain Inc., a leading supplier of frozen specialty foods, after two women working at the company’s facility in Salina, Kansas, suffered amputations in separate accidents and a third suffered lacerations and burns.
On Aug. 11, 2015, a 55-year-old worker was picking pizza crumbs and crust that had collected around an oven when her work glove became caught in an unguarded conveyor chain and sprocket assembly. Her right hand was later amputated by surgeons.
A little more than two months later, a 49-year-old woman working at the same facility was walking beneath a conveyor when she reached up to get her balance. As she attempted to stand, her hand apparently came into contact with an unguarded chain and sprocket assembly on the conveyor’s underside resulting in the amputation of the middle finger on her left hand.
On Sept. 30, 2015, a 49-year-old worker reached into an an area of a conveyor to clear a jam of pizza pans. She suffered a laceration, broken bones, and burns to the palm of her left hand. OSHA investigators later determined that safety guards had not been installed on operating parts between the top and bottom conveyors.