Getting Caught Up In Your Work Can Be Fatal

Entanglement in a machine can happen instantly. Long hair or loose clothing can catch on a rotating surface and — faster than anyone could possibly react — the victim is dragged into the moving machinery.

Loose clothing, such as gloves or scarves, jewelry, unrestrained long hair, bandages, cleaning cloths and even material being fed into the machine, can get caught. In such an incident the victim might come into body contact with a rotating surface. Examples of rotating surfaces are shafts, couplings, spindles, screws, chucks and spinning workpieces such as drills.

Another way such an incident can happen is when a worker is caught on a projection or in a gap between machine parts. Projecting hazards include fasteners, keys and cotter pins. Examples of machine parts with gaps are fan blades and sprockets, mixer arms and wheels.

Being caught in a nip point is another way such a deadly incident can occur. A nip point could be counter-rotating parts such as gear wheels or a set of rollers. The space where a rotating part meets a fixed part is another nip point, such as the space between a flywheel and the bed of the machinery.