NIOSH Alert: Request for Assistance in Preventing Scalping and
Other Severe Injuries from Farm Machinery
CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
(NIOSH) periodically issues alerts on workplace hazards that have
caused death, serious injury, or illness to workers. One such
alert, Request for Assistance in Preventing Scalping and Other
Severe Injuries from Farm Machinery (1), was recently published and
is available to the public. *
This alert warns that farm workers are at high risk for
avulsion of the scalp and other severe injuries when they work near
farm machinery with inadequately guarded drivelines or shafts
driven by power take-offs (PTOs). Entanglement of hair, clothing,
or body parts around these drivelines or shafts kills and injures
many farm workers each year: according to the NIOSH National
Traumatic Occupational Fatalities Surveillance System, at least 346
farm workers aged greater than or equal to 16 years died from
farm-related entanglement injuries during 1980-1989; 112 of those
deaths were caused by entanglement in PTO-driven drivelines and
shafts of farm machinery. Approximately 10,000 nonfatal
entanglement injuries also occurred on farms during 1982-1986; 864
of these injuries included the loss of a body part (1).
The alert describes five persons who were severely injured
when their hair became entangled around the inadequately guarded
rotating drivelines or shafts of farm machinery driven by PTOs
(1,2). Recommendations are given for farm owners and workers to
prevent injuries from primary and secondary drivelines and other
PTO-driven shafts.
References
NIOSH. Request for assistance in preventing scalping and other
severe injuries from farm machinery. Cincinnati: US Department of
Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, CDC, 1994; DHHS
publication no. (NIOSH)94-105.
CDC. Scalping incidents involving hay balers -- New York. MMWR
1992;41:489-91.
Single copies of this document are available without charge from
the Publications Office, Division of Standards Development and
Technology Transfer, NIOSH, CDC, Mailstop C-13, 4676 Columbia
Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 45226-1998; telephone (800) 356-4674 ({513}
533-8328 for persons outside the United States); fax (513)
533-8573.
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