Abstract
On May 6, 1994, a 19 year old, male, production assistant was fatally crushed in a screen printing press at a Massachusetts printing company. The victim was a temporary worker, and had worked for 2 weeks at the shop. The victim and the press operator had finished a printing job and were preparing to clean the press. The press operator depressed the foot treadle to raise the frame of the press, and as it lifted, the victim reached under the reciprocating arm from the right side of the press. Although the press had an infrared emergency stop system, the frame reversed itself and came slamming down at a speed faster than normal. It caught the victim across the chest, pinning him to the bed. Hearing the crash and the victim's groan, coworkers immediately summoned local firefighters. The victim was rushed to a local hospital and then airlifted to a major metropolitan hospital; however, he died en route. To prevent future similar occurrences, the FACE Project recommends that employers: 1. Ensure that lockout and tagout procedures are strictly followed when machines are serviced or cleaned. 2. Ensure that temporary employees are fully informed of potential jobsite safety hazards. 3. Specify in their contracts with temporary agencies who is responsible for providing both general and job specific health and safety training to temporary workers. In addition, machine manufacturers should: 4. Ensure that new semi-automatic and fully-automatic machinery undergoes extensive safety review prior to placing it in production.
Keywords
Region-1; Accident-analysis; Accident-prevention; Accidents; Injuries; Injury-prevention; Traumatic-injuries; Work-operations; Work-analysis; Work-areas; Work-performance; Work-practices; Safety-education; Safety-equipment; Safety-measures; Safety-monitoring; Protective-measures; Safety-programs; Age-factors; Children; Printing-industry; Printing-presses
