Accident Commentaries
III. Accident due to incorrect use of a radial grinder
The job consisted in undoing a weld that joined two steel sections; to do so, the worker used a portable radial device equipped with a cutting disc, rated at 8,500 rpm which was compatible with the grinder.
After carrying out a number of modifications in the work equipment and when he proceeded to cut the weld, the cutting disc broke and cut a tendon in the worker’s hand.
Why did the accident occur?
- Due to a series of unsafe acts carried out by the worker himself.
- As the head of the machine did not fit into the space between two sections and the cutting disc was not able to cut into the weld seam, the worker decided to change the disc for another one from a fixed cutoff machine, suitable for 5,100 rpm, which did not meet the standard for the radial machine employed.
- To mount this disc (with a greater diameter than the machine could allow), the worker dismantled the guard and, as the handle for holding the machine bothered him, he likewise dismantled it.
- The accident occurred under these circumstances, which produced breakage of the disk into several pieces, one of which damaged the worker’s wrist, affecting a tendon.
How could the accident have been avoided?
- By complying with sections 1 and 3 of point 2 of Article 29 of the Spanish Occupational Risk Prevention Law (workers’ obligations in matters of risk prevention), which states:
- 1º.- To appropriately use, in accordance with their nature and foreseeable risks, machines, work equipment, tools, hazardous substances and, in general, any other means with which they perform their activities.
- 2º.- To not put out of working order and to correctly use any existing safety devices or those which are installed in the means related with their activity or at work sites in which these take place.
- If the machine was not the appropriate one for the job, he should have used another means, for example, oxy-cutting equipment).
