Fatality Narrative: Dairy Worker Injured When Clothes Are Caught in Straw Spreader

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Washington (State). Department of Labor and Industries
• Description:
  In December 2016, a worker at a dairy farm was severely injured when his clothing was caught in the rotating beater bars of a straw spreader that he was greasing. The worker had been employed at the dairy for 7 months, and had worked in the industry for about 4 years. On the day of the incident, he was working to grease the bearings on a hydraulic straw spreader attached to a tractor. This task was performed by farm employees as needed, up to twice a week. The worker told investigators that the farm mechanic had trained him to grease the straw spreader while it was running so that grease would go into the bearings. The employer's accident prevention program included information about lockout/tagout procedures, but not specifically for the straw spreader. The worker said that he had never received training in lockout/ tagout procedures. When the worker had finished greasing the bearings on one part of the spreader, he started to duck under the rotating beater bars to get to the next set of bearings underneath the machine. As he bent down, the metal teeth caught hold of his loose hooded sweatshirt and pulled his head and neck into the beaters. The straw spreader had a mechanism to shut off automatically when jammed, but when the beater bars stopped rotating, he remained entangled in the machine and lost consciousness. Another employee found the injured worker caught in the teeth and shut off the power to the straw spreader. The co-worker and a supervisor were able to cut him loose and call emergency services. He underwent surgery for fractures to his neck and skull. After more than six months, he had still not been able to return to work due to the extent of his injuries. Description provided by NIOSH
• Subjects:
  • Accident Prevention
  • Accidents
  • Accidents, Occupational
  • Agriculture
  • Farmers
  • Occupational Health
  • Safety
  • Staff Development
  • Workplace
• Keywords:
  • Workers
  • Work environment
  • Farm workers
  • Agriculture
  • Agricultural workers
  • Agricultural machinery
  • Accidents
  • Accident prevention
  • Lockout tagout
  • Equipment operation
  More +
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 10 ; Washington
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20051390
• Citation:
  Olympia, WA: Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, 71-161-2017, 2017 Aug; :1
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2017
• Performing Organization:
  Washington State Department of Labor and Industries
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Fatality narrative: dairy worker injured when clothes are caught in straw spreader
• End Date:
  20260630
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/228721/cdc_228721_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 239.45 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program ; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:da009f8b394668fb29afde300ff0a3e1fe5f6afdb2df905f950bce451106a5fb696ae4c93e3adebedcfdeba42500ae8d05807109c36a7c8ba467589292ea070b