National Center for Farmworker Health
info@ncfh.org
1770 FM 967 • Buda, TX 78610
(512) 312-2700
(800) 531-5120
fax (512) 312-2600

Request for Assistance in Preventing Scalping and Other Severe Injuries From Farm Machinery

Author: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
Date Published: 1994


This alert warns that farmworkers 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.

download now

Price: free
Number of Pages: 8