Select Supplements: OSHA inspections and violations

Incident on Nov 29, 2007: Employee crushes hand between dies of pill making machine

At 11:30 a.m. on November 29, 2007, Employee #1, a machine operator, was working at a health supplements manufacturing factory in Carlsbad. The worksite is a fa cility where health supplements in pill and powder form are manufactured and pac kaged. Employee #1's job that day was to operate the soft gel encapsulation mach ine, which makes soft gel capsules from heated gelatin sheets. Employee #1 was s etting up the machine by feeding gel sheets into the machine prior to starting a run. There are two die rolls that fit together to form the gelatin sheets into capsules, and a wedge that is lowered into the pinch point between the rollers t o fill the capsules with liquid once the machine is set up to run. While Employe e #1 was feeding the gelatin sheet into the die rolls, he placed his left hand n ear the rollers while the machine was operating. His left hand was pulled into t he pinch point, mangling all four fingers before he could activate the emergency stop. Employee #1 suffered permanent disfigurement and loss of the use of two o f his fingers when the fingers of his left hand were crushed in a pill making ma chine. Employee #1 was transported to Tri-City Hospital, where he underwent trea tment for the damaged digits and was hospitalized for three nights.