How often these injuries happen
OSHA recorded 55 severe incidents involving material handling and warehousing machinery over the past year. Amputations are the most frequent injury type, accounting for 53 percent of all reported cases. These injuries often involve permanent loss of function and require extensive surgical intervention.
The severity of these incidents is driven by the high-torque nature of the equipment involved. Fingers are the most commonly affected body part, appearing in 60 percent of all reports. You may face long-term disability and significant time away from work following these traumatic events.
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Check My BenefitsHow these injuries happen
Injuries involving this machinery typically occur when safety protocols fail during routine tasks. The most common event is being struck by running powered equipment during maintenance, cleaning, or testing, which accounts for 57 percent of all cases. You are often injured when you attempt to clear jams, inspect moving parts, or manually adjust blocks while the machinery is still energized or lacks proper lockout-tagout protections.
| Cause | Incidents | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Struck by running powered equipment— during maintenance, cleaning, testing | 31 |
| 2 | Caught, entangled in running powered equipment— normal operation | 7 |
| 3 | Struck by running powered equipment— unspecified | 4 |
| 4 | Compressed between running equipment and other object(s) | 3 |
| 5 | Struck by rolling powered vehicle or machinery | 3 |
| 6 | Other fall to lower level | 1 |
| 7 | Struck by running powered equipment— n.e.c. | 1 |
| 8 | Caught or wedged between objects— nonrunning | 1 |
Where injuries happen most
Manufacturing accounts for 71 percent of all severe machinery injuries, as high-speed production lines require constant interaction with palletizers and cubers. Wholesale trade and transportation and warehousing also report significant numbers of incidents. These industries rely on automated systems that, when improperly guarded or maintained, create immediate hazards for you.
Real cases like yours
Common patterns in these incidents include you performing maintenance on energized equipment or attempting to manually clear jams without locking out the power source. These reports frequently describe sudden machine movements that pin or crush limbs, leading to severe lacerations and traumatic amputations. If any of these scenarios sound like what happened to you, an attorney can help you review the specific circumstances of your injury.
| Year | State | Industry | Incident summary | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | IL | Manufacturing | "An employee was running the cuber machine (moves and stacks blocks onto pallets) in the block plant. He went to manually move some blocks and the carriage of the cuber moved and pinned his midsection (abdomen, pelvis, and lower back region). The employee was hospitalized with fractures to his bottom two ribs and L3 vertebra. The machine was not locked out/tagged out at the time." | |
| 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." | |
| 2025 | MA | Transportation & Warehousing | "An employee was carrying out a preventative maintenance inspection on a robotic picker. As the employee was moving metal lift bands to inspect for damage and tears, they tangled around the support structure of the robot service grid. When the employee went to free the bands, the banding severely lacerated the employee's left hand and index finger." | |
| 2025 | GA | Manufacturing | "While explaining to a co-worker how to install a new gate on the palletizer machine, an employee's left thumb tip was amputated by the machine's piston." | |
| 2025 | NJ | Manufacturing | "An employee was conducting maintenance on the bag in box (BIB) palletizer machine when the motor chain jumped, pulling his right index finger into the chain drive attached to the motor and causing a fingertip amputation." | |
| 2025 | AL | Manufacturing | "An employee was replacing bolts on the lumber stacker. The employee grabbed a ladder and climbed up under the stacker between the carriage and an I-beam to replace a bolt. After the employee finished, he instructed the operator to release the e-stop so he could watch the stacker run. However, the lumber stacker was pre-cycled and once the e-stop was disengaged the carriage pinned the employee against the I-beam. The employee sustained fractures to their chest and head, a concussion, and internal bleeding. The employee was hospitalized." | |
| 2025 | TX | Retail Trade | "An employee was working on tote de-nester when the belt unbound, sending his right hand through a gear pulley. The employee sustained lacerations to the little, ring, and middle fingers. The little finger was amputated at the first knuckle, the ring finger requires 8 sutures, and the middle finger was broken and it's fingernail was crushed." | |
| 2025 | NJ | Manufacturing | "An employee was adjusting a transfer cart that was misaligned with the track when the cart ran over his right foot and amputated three toes. " | |
| 2025 | MA | Wholesale Trade | "An employee was operating an industrial take-up machine to pull wire from a rack of spools so that the wire could be cut to length and wrapped onto one large spool. The take-up machine was used to turn the spool as the employee wrapped mule tape around the wire to secure it on the spool. The mule tape wrapped around the employee's fingers causing amputations to their right ring and little fingertips." | |
| 2025 | OH | Manufacturing | "An employee was raking screws at the transfer cart from the paint bath to the oven when a screw fell on the ground. While the employee was picking up the screw, an automated transfer cart moved and amputated their left little finger to the first knuckle." |
Source: OSHA Severe Injury Reports. Narratives are verbatim from filings; identifying details may have been redacted by OSHA.