Worker severely injured when hand becomes caught in unguarded machine at plastic manufacturer

Employer name: Fukuvi USA Inc., Huber Heights, Ohio

Citations received: Dec. 21, 2015

Investigation findings: The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Cincinnati Area Office cited the plastic extrusion manufacturer for one willful safety violation for failing to install machine guarding on a puller machine.

The agency initiated its inspection after a 31-year-old worker’s suffered a degloving injury of his left arm when it was caught and pulled into the machine as he fed a plastic part into it.

Quote: “Injuries like this are preventable when companies install machine guards and train workers on safety procedures,” said Ken Montgomery, OSHA’s area director in Cincinnati. “Each year, hundreds of workers are injured while operating machinery without required safe guards. OSHA inspectors found this machine had been in use for at least a year without the proper guarding in place. It is fortunate no one else was injured.”

Proposed Penalties: $49,000

Citations: View here.

To ask questions, obtain compliance assistance, file a complaint, or report amputations, eye loss, workplace hospitalizations, fatalities or situations posing imminent danger to workers, the public should call OSHA’s

toll-free hotline at 800-321-OSHA (6742) or the agency’s Cincinnati Area Office at (513) 841-4132.