Citation

Trent RB, Wyant WD. J. Occup. Med. 1990; 32(8): 711-714.

Affiliation

Emergency Preparedness and Injury Control, California Department of Health Services, Sacramento 95814.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1990, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

2401927

Abstract

Past research on occupational hand tool injuries has generally focused on nonfatal injuries. Most such injuries occur at the point where energy is transferred to the material being worked, eg, at the edge of a saw blade or the point of a drill. Assuming that hand tool injuries that are fatal will differ from nonfatal injuries, 62 Occupation Safety and Health Administration reports were analyzed. Four patterns emerged when the type of contact with energy was used to classify incidents. Fatal injuries occurred when (1) contact was made with energy that supplies power to the hand tool, (2) energy normally transferred to the material being worked is transferred to the worker, (3) workers or materials fall, and (4) potential energy is encountered in the work environment. Analysis showed that almost all such injuries could be prevented by application of existing safe work practices.