How often these injuries happen
OSHA recorded 5,070 severe cases involving you being caught between running equipment and other objects over the last decade. Amputations account for 77 percent of these incidents, representing some of the most life-altering injuries you can sustain on the job.
These events are uniquely dangerous because they often involve high-force compression that destroys tissue and bone. With 86 percent of these injuries affecting fingers, the long-term impact on your ability to perform daily tasks and return to your career is significant.
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Injuries typically occur when safety guards are missing, bypassed, or improperly maintained on industrial equipment. You are often caught when assisting with material handling, such as steadying metal sheets or pipes near moving forklifts and cranes. When machines like trash compactors or threading tools jam, reaching into the danger zone to clear debris frequently leads to sudden, catastrophic entanglement.
| Injury Type | Incidents | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amputations, avulsions, enucleations | 3,896 |
| 2 | Fractures | 512 |
| 3 | Traumatic injuries or exposures— unspecified | 381 |
| 4 | Cuts, lacerations, punctures without injury to internal structures | 128 |
| 5 | Severe wounds or internal injuries and other injuries | 49 |
| 6 | Injuries to internal organs and major blood vessels | 28 |
| 7 | Bruises, contusions | 18 |
| 8 | Intracranial Injuries | 8 |
Where injuries happen most
Manufacturing accounts for 42 percent of these severe incidents, largely due to the constant interaction between you and high-speed production machinery. In these environments, the pressure to maintain output often leads to the removal of safety interlocks or inadequate training on lockout-tagout procedures, creating high-risk zones where a single moment of distraction results in a permanent injury.
Real cases like yours
Common patterns in these reports show that temporary employees and those assisting heavy equipment operators are at the highest risk of being pinned or crushed. These incidents frequently stem from a lack of clear communication during material handling or the failure to secure equipment before maintenance begins. 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 | OH | Manufacturing | "A temporary employee was helping a forklift operator by holding metal sheets to steady them as they were placed on a rail for feeding to a stamp machine. The operator lowered the forks with the blanks (weighting approximately 750 pounds). The temporary employee's right index finger was caught between the metal and the feeding rail. The finger was crushed and partially amputated through the bone." | |
| 2025 | LA | Construction | "An employee was performing maintenance work on two gantry cranes located on an elevated trestle rail system. He was performing his work from the basket of a scissor lift that was positioned between the cranes. One of the cranes moved southward, pinning the basket and the employee against the other crane. The employee suffered three broken ribs on his left side and a lacerated kidney, resulting in hospitalization." | |
| 2025 | CO | Professional Services | "An employee was assisting a forklift operator with dumping trash into a trash compactor when the forklift crushed his right-hand fingers against a guardrail. The employee's little finger was partially amputated." | |
| 2025 | NJ | Utilities | "An employee was using a pipe threading machine to thread a 2-inch diameter gas pipe during the rebuilding of a gas meter. The pipe was in a vise mounted on the back of the crew truck. A few pieces of metal chips or shavings caused the threading machine to jam. The employee started to back the pipe up, but it jammed in that direction as well. While reaching to pull the handle back up into place to try and start again, the machine rotated about an inch and pinched his middle fingertip against the edge of the truck s back step. The employee's fingertip was partially amputated without loss of bone." | |
| 2025 | FL | Wholesale Trade | "An employee was placing a support block onto a truck bed to provide support for a unit of material. A forklift that was lowering a unit of lumber onto the truck bed crushed the employee's little finger, resulting in the amputation of most of the distal phalanx of the finger." | |
| 2025 | IL | Manufacturing | "An employee was working with a pallet bagger, trimming excess corrugate off a tray. The load was raised on a lift table. The scrap being trimmed activated the lift table's photo eye, causing the table to lower. Its frame pinched the steel toe of the employee's left boot between a bracket and the concrete. The employee suffered fractures in the left foot and was hospitalized." | |
| 2025 | MS | Manufacturing | "An employee was ascending in an aerial lift. He was pinned between the lift's control panel and the hull of a ship, suffering injuries to the liver and spleen." | |
| 2025 | TX | Utilities | "An employee was ascending the wind tower when their right arm was caught between the lift and the ladder. The employee sustained a right elbow injury and was hospitalized. " | |
| 2025 | TX | Construction | "An employee was emptying bulk bags/sacks of lime into a lime pit. A sack fell into the lime pit. The employee was directing an excavator to pick it up when the excavator struck the employee, fracturing their left ankle against a concrete barrier." | |
| 2025 | OH | Transportation & Warehousing | "An employee was operating a battery extractor for a powered industrial truck and was grabbing the battery when the mass from the extractor pushed back. His right middle fingertip was pinched between the battery and the extractor resulting in amputation at the first knuckle." |
Source: OSHA Severe Injury Reports. Narratives are verbatim from filings; identifying details may have been redacted by OSHA.