Mondo Polymer Technologies, Inc.

Incident Narrative

An employee was operating a machine that dumps bales of plastic into a shredder. The platform was in the dump position when the employee noticed there was plastic about to discharge and was concerned it wouldn't enter into the shredder. He climbed up the side of the bale dumper to manually push the plastic towards the hopper and placed his left hand on the upright box tubing frame, which houses the guide wheels. There are two access holes approximately two inches in diameter, which maintenance uses to access the guide wheel bolt. The employee was wearing gloves and did not realize that his fingers were in the access hole. When the platform moved into the loading position, the employee's fingers were caught between the guide wheel bolt and the edge of the box tubing. The employee's left ring finger was partially amputated and the left middle finger was lacerated with ligament damage.