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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