Workplace machinery and the risk of an on-the-job amputation

Heavy machinery, vehicles and even robots make modern work easier for employees by performing tasks that may have once been done by hand. However, with the decreased demand for intensive physical labor comes a number of risks associated with workplace machinery and equipment.

Machinery accidents can happen when equipment fails, when management doesn’t engage in adequate staff training or maintenance and when human error occurs. These accidents can lead to severe injuries, including the loss of a limb or an extremity.

Amputation is one of the most severe and frightening injuries that a worker could potentially suffer on the job. All too often, machinery or equipment plays a key role in employee amputation injuries.

Moving machinery is especially dangerous

Although even a basic car crash on the job could potentially lead to a worker losing a limb, it is often exposure to specific kinds of machinery that puts a worker at risk for amputation. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), machinery that rotates, moves rapidly up and down or side to side, travels in a line, cuts, punches, shears or bends may have a strong correlation with the increased risk of an amputation on the job.

Workers in California who suffer in an amputation injury on the job or who suffer such severe crushing, tearing or cutting injuries to their limbs that amputation is the only treatment option after the fact will likely require workers’ compensation benefits during their physical recovery and when they later attempt to return to work. Both medical coverage and disability benefits will be vastly important for workers who lose a body part on the job.