Inspection Detail

Inspection: 1505135.015 - Azteca Bakeries Inc

Inspection Information - Office: Arizona Division Of Occupational Safety And Health (Adosh)

Investigation Summary

At 10:20 or 10:30 p.m. on December 4, 2020, an employee was working at a commercial bakery. She was a baker. On the day of the incident, she had been assigned by the quality control supervisor to work with company maintenance personnel to clean a Vemag model number ROBOT HP 10C dough cutter, with an unknown serial number. She stated that the maintenance worker had deenergized the machine, disconnected the air supply, and, finally, removed the guard. The employee was cleaning out the unused dough in the extruder portion of the machine. The extruder portion was right below the slicing blade. She started scraping the old dough off the outside of the machine and then reached inside the machine's extruder tube with her left hand. Employee was cleaning cookie dough from around the cutting blade, when, at approximately 10:45 p.m., the machine cycled. The cutting blade suddenly released, amputating her left thumb. The violation worksheet said that the placement of her right hand on the top of the machine "caused" the release of the blade. The employee was taken by ambulance to a hospital. She was hospitalized. The incident was captured on closed-circuit TV. The employee could be seen placing her left hand inside the dough cutter's extruder tube and removing dough. Then, she could be seen placing her right hand on the machine. At that point, the slicing blade came down on her left hand, inside the tube.

Keywords: Amputated, Amputation, Baker, Bakery, Blade, Cleaning, Cutter, Emergency Response, Food processing, Guard, Hand, Instantaneous amputation, Lockout, Lockout/Tagout, Machine Cycled, Machine operator, Maintenance, Reach, Reaching, Reaching In, Struck By, Supervisor, Thumb, Traumatic Amputation, Unguarded