Westgate Cups: OSHA inspections and violations

Incident on Aug 31, 2020: Energized material cutter amputates employee's fingers

At 9:15 a.m. on August 31, 2020, an employee was working for a company that manufactured food packaging containers. It provided products to food service customers. The facility produced plastic buckets from rolls of plastic sheet. PMC machines #1 through #3 formed the buckets with heat. Excess plastic sheet, in a continuous strip, was blown out of the machines. PMC machines #1 and #3 utilized trim cutters or grinders to shred the waste material. PMC machine #2 utilized a rotating spindle or rewinder to collect the waste material. The employee was a machine operator. In this incident, he was operating PMC #1 for the first time. This was a Paper Machinery Corporation model number 1300 cup and container forming machine, with serial number 87436. The grinder attached to it was a Blower Application Co. model number 12SC trim cutter, with serial number 070610A1. The grinder attached to PMC #1 had become clogged. The employee stopped the PMC machine to unclog the grinder. The employee hit the STOP button on the PMC #1 machine and went to the grinder. There, he removed the metal ductwork-like elbow from the exhaust or outfeed end of the grinder and reached in to unjam the clogged material. The opening of the grinder where the employee reached in was approximately 5 in. (127 mm) in diameter and approximately less than 12 in. (305 mm) from the rotating cutters of the grinder. The grinder motor was still winding down. The blades of the grinder were still rotating inside the equipment. The employee suffered the amputation of several fingers. He was hospitalized. The firm's owner terminated the floor manager and chief operating officer. The floor manager had directed the employee to operate the PMC #1 machine that day. In October 2018, an employee working on PMC #3 suffered almost identical injuries, the amputation of fingers, while reaching into the grinder after the machine was turned off but while the blades inside were still spinning. Citations were issued for that incident.