Southwire Company

On April 25, 2023, at approximately 6:20 p.m., the injured employee was observing his co-workers as they used a chain to the lift the metal lid from a launder machine (a piece of equipment that holds and processes copper). The chain shifted, causing the lid to shift. Copper debris fell off the lid, striking the injured employee and fracturing the right side of their jaw.

An employee had connected two pieces of large wire together to provide a continuous feed of wire into a plastic extruder. The feed wire comes into the process on large metal reels; the employee was taking up the slack using a reel pay-off machine. As the wire slack was taken up on the reel, the wire swept the employee off his feet. The employee landed on his left shoulder and the left side of his head. He was hospitalized, suffering a subarachnoid and subdural hematoma as well as a shoulder injury.

An employee loaded a reel of cable onto the payoff machine area. The employee was rocking the reel into place when the reel went too far forward, catching the employee's left ring and pinky fingers between the side of the metal reel and the vertical support structure of the machine's control panel. The employee's pinky fingertip had to be amputated.

An employee was loading up a payoff machine when the employee's left index finger was caught between the reel and the drive arm of the payoff, resulting in an amputation of the distal phalanges on the left index finger.

While operating the strander machine in normal operating mode, an employee's clothes became entangled in the rotating parts of the machine. The employee was dragged into the machine, suffering head lacerations and breaking the right and left femur, right tibia and fibula, and four ribs.

An employee was changing mud cups in the hopper cylinders of a concrete pump truck. The cylinders moved and three of the employees fingers were amputated.

An employee was standing on the rig floor next to a polishing unit. His hand was placed on the polishing unit when the pump was lowered, resulting in amputation of their right thumb, ring, and middle fingertips.

An employee was using air to blow out the air wash to the blender and grinder station. As the employee reached to verify that the air wash was clean, the unit pinched and amputated their fingertip.

An employee was retrieving a lost drill pipe with a lifting bail when their left thumb got pinched between the table and handle of the lifting bail while trying to re-thread the pipe to lift it out. The employee suffered an amputation to the left thumb.

An employee was removing a core chuck from a stationary roll when their right ring finger was pinched between the chuck and the roll. The employee's fingertip was amputated.

An employee was loading an empty reel on the west reel take-up when they noticed that the wire lying on the east reel take-up had over-accumulated on one side of the reel, making it uneven. The employee stopped the east take-up machine and released tension on the wire to correct the lay. As the employee engaged a mechanical rotation function to take up the wire slack, their right little finger was crushed between two separate wire strands on the reel under tension, resulting in a fingertip amputation. The machine was guarded at the time of the incident.

An employee was operating an overhead crane to transport a bundle of copper tubing. He went to lower the load as he was approaching a rack, but the suspended bundle of tubing suddenly jerked in the other direction. The bundle struck a nearby tool cabinet, and the cabinet tipped over. The employee went to prevent it from falling. However, the cabinet still fell over, striking his right arm and briefly pinning it against another object. The employee suffered a fractured right forearm that required hospitalization.

An employee was working to manually clear copper tubes from the turnover rack due to a faulty sensor. As he used his right hand to remove a finished tube from the turnover rack, another tube pushed through the feed line and struck his gloved right ring fingertip. The sharp edge of the copper tube caused a soft tissue amputation to the bottom side of the fingertip.

An employee was cleaning slag from a casting mold at a furnace. The molten copper dropped out of the mold too quickly, reacted with the mold cooling water, and blew out. The molten metal struck his right foot, hand, and torso, causing first-, second-, and third-degree burns.

An employee was working with a drill press when his right glove was caught and pulled into the drill bit. The employee's little fingertip was partially amputated.

After cutting a slab of beef short ribs, an employee turned to grab the pieces he had cut and his right hand contacted the saw blade. The employee sustained an amputation to his right index finger.

An employee was unloading a carpet pad from a truck when they fell from the truck dock to the concrete below, resulting in five fractured ribs and an injury to their left lung.

An employee was inspecting flares processes. The employee received burns to the front side of the body, face and arm from the flares.

An employee was removing plastic material from a production line when the machine cycled and amputated his left index, ring, and little fingers.

An employee was walking up a walkway to enter a building through the back entrance when she tripped over the lip of the cement ramp. The employee fell and sustained a fractured right hip.