SECTION 4 
INDIVIDUAL ACCIDENTS 
A LIMITED exploration of what takes place when an accident occurs 
was made in 30 selected plants during July and August, 1926. The 
Committee views this phase of the study as an experiment. Therefore 
the reader is cautioned against putting too much dependence upon the 
findings. However, they are significantly important. 
The participating companies were requested to assign to some com- 
petent person the responsibility of immediately going to the place of 
an accident for the purpose of making specific observations, including 
such items as a detailed description of the accident, covering its 
cause; type of machine; tool or appliance involved; the location and 
nature of the injury incurred; the number of the injured and non- 
injured affected; the loss of productive time by the injured and non- 
injured ; the loss of production value and other important factors. 
The reports covered 704 accidents, some of which were major and 
some very minor. 
The products manufactured by the participating companies are: 
Ball Bearings 
Brass Goods 
Carpets and Rugs 
Coke and By-products 
Contractors’ Equipment 
Doors 
Dyes and Intermediates 
tllectric Elevators 
Explosives 
Feed-cutters and Miscellaneous 
Machinery 
Fine Instruments 
General Contract Machine Building 
Heating and Ventilating Equipment 
Lumber and Logging 
Machine Tools 
Mining and Quarrying Machinery 
Oower-house Specialties 
Power Shovels 
Radiators and Boilers 
Railway Repair Shops 
Rayon 
Silks 
Soaps and Toilet Specialties 
Valves 
The data have been analyzed by departments, causes of accidents, 
location of injury, and nature of injury. In order to determine the 
relative rank of the factors named, four measures have been applied. 
These are the per cent of the number of accidents, the per cent of the 
productive time lost, the average number of hours lost per accident, 
and the average value, in dollars, of the loss of production per accident. 
Productive Time Lost by Injured and Noninjured.—The produc- 
five time lost by injured employees was reported for 688 accidents. 
The time lost by the injured was 22,403 hours, or approximately 33 
10urs per accident. 
When 76 accidents occurred, 689 employees, other than the injured, 
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