How often these injuries happen
OSHA recorded 15,092 severe cases involving you being caught in running powered equipment over the last decade. Amputations are the most frequent outcome, accounting for 75% of all reported incidents in this category.
These injuries most often impact your fingers, which are involved in 76% of all recorded cases. The high frequency of permanent tissue loss and crushing injuries highlights the extreme danger posed by inadequately guarded machinery.
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Check My BenefitsCommon injuries
Entanglement often occurs when you interact with conveyors, extruding machinery, or food processing equipment during normal operation. These incidents frequently happen when safety guards are bypassed, missing, or improperly adjusted, allowing your hands and arms to be pulled into moving parts like spindles or rollers.
| Injury Type | Incidents | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amputations, avulsions, enucleations | 11,224 |
| 2 | Fractures | 1,661 |
| 3 | Traumatic injuries or exposures— unspecified | 986 |
| 4 | Cuts, lacerations, punctures without injury to internal structures | 644 |
| 5 | Severe wounds or internal injuries and other injuries | 176 |
| 6 | Injuries to internal organs and major blood vessels | 60 |
| 7 | Nonfatal 'crushing' injuries | 44 |
| 8 | Bruises, contusions | 36 |
Where injuries happen most
Manufacturing accounts for 70% of all severe entanglement cases. The high volume of high-speed production machinery in this sector requires strict adherence to machine guarding protocols to prevent you from coming into contact with dangerous pinch points.
Real cases like yours
Common patterns in these reports include you reaching into machinery to clear jams, adjust settings, or take measurements while equipment is still energized. Many incidents involve your clothing or limbs being pulled into spindles or rollers unexpectedly. If any of these scenarios sound like what happened to you, an attorney can help you review the specifics of your incident.
| Year | State | Industry | Incident summary | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | CO | Agriculture | "Two employees were operating a wood splitter. An employee was loading wood into the splitter when the tip of his right thumb was crushed between the rear end of the wood and the back metal plate of the wood splitter. The employee's thumb tip was amputated." | |
| 2025 | OK | Manufacturing | "An employee was operating a vertical mill to machine a fixture for an engineering project. The employee was using calipers to take a measurement of the fixture in proximity to the spindle when the sleeve of his shop coat got caught in the spindle, pulling his left hand into the tool. The employee sustained a severe abrasion to the back of his hand." | |
| 2025 | TX | Mining | "At approximately 10:40 AM, on July 30, 2025, during operations on a rig at a well, the injured employee was in the derrick, working to pull back a joint of pipe. He encountered a shorter-than-standard pipe, which prevented him from securing his arm around it, so he grabbed the pipe by the collar with his left hand. The blocks were being lowered at the time. The bottom of the blocks contacted the top of the pipe while the employee's fingers were inside the collar. His middle and ring fingers were amputated and the index finger was partially amputated. The employee was hospitalized and required surgery." | |
| 2025 | CT | Construction | "An employee was bending sheet metal on a brake press. The press actuated while he was adjusting a piece of sheet metal, resulting in a crushing injury to the left arm." | |
| 2025 | MO | Arts & Entertainment | "At the end of a shift on the downhill coaster, an employee was waiting for an empty cart to arrive at the bottom so he could ride it back up the hill. The cart arrived with its seat belt safety lock engaged. The employee boarded the top of the cart and began working to disengage the lock by reaching under the cart. His right hand and two fingers got caught between the rear wheel of the cart and the coaster rail. His ring and little fingers were crushed and lacerated, resulting in surgery and partial amputation of the ring finger." | |
| 2025 | TX | Administrative Services | "On July 29, 2025, at approximately 8:30 AM, a temporary employee was performing the riveting process at her assigned station on the stamping line. Her left index fingertip became caught in a pinch point of a stamping machine. The employee's fingertip was partially amputated." | |
| 2025 | OH | Manufacturing | "An employee was loading pipe into a flare machine when a part clamp caught her right hand. The hand was lacerated and broken. A light curtain was in place at the time of the incident." | |
| 2025 | KS | Transportation & Warehousing | "An employee was sorting packages on a conveyor belt. The employee's hand was caught between the belt and a transition plate, causing lacerations and burns to their hand and wrist." | |
| 2025 | WI | Administrative Services | "At about 11:45 p.m. on July 26, 2025, an employee was cleaning the floor with a pressure washer. While clearing away a piece of sausage, their left hand was caught between the rollers and the belt on a conveyor. The employee suffered partial amputations to the middle and ring fingers." | |
| 2025 | SD | Manufacturing | "An employee was assisting with rigging a magnet to an overhead crane in order to lift a sheet of steel. The employee's right thumb was between the crane's hook and the chain passing through the hook, and when the crane was raised, the distal end of their thumb was crushed. Part of the employee's right thumb was medically amputated." |
Source: OSHA Severe Injury Reports. Narratives are verbatim from filings; identifying details may have been redacted by OSHA.