OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #221517584

BELL INCORPORATED

SIOUX FALLS, SD— 2022-11-29T00:00:00

Event: Activated, Arm, Caught Between, Conveyor, Crushed, Crushing, Energized, Hand, Head, Lockout, Lockout/Tagout, Lubricating, Neck, Puncture, Puncture Wound, Robot, Roller--Mach/Part, Sensor, Shoulder, Skull
NAICS: 322211
Inspection type: Federal Agency
Activity number: #346367279
Employer profile: BELL INCORPORATED
Summary number: 221517584
Report ID: 0830400

Event description

Employee is killed while lubricating machine rollers

Investigation abstract

At 2:15 p.m. on November 29, 2022, an employee was lubricating conveyor rollers robot arm stopped moving likely because the servos that moved the robot arm limited out due to sensing friction. The employee died due to crushing and piercing injuries. with WD-40 in an energized robotic cell referred to as the iPal palletizer machine. There were no other similar machines in the facility. The employee was between the robot arm and south side of the conveyor when he unknowingly activated the photo eye located at the roller plane which senses when pallets are ready to be picked up. The motion of moving the can of WD-40 over the conveyor area satisfied the photo eye which then sent the robot arm into motion, striking the employee in the back of the head, neck, and shoulder area pushing him down into the conveyor and piercing his neck, skull, and right hand. The

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 54 M

Event type
2

Occupation code
779

Codes shown verbatim from OSHA's accident-investigation database. A human-readable decoder is coming in a future release once the accident_lookup2 dictionary is loaded.