CONFIDENTIAL PRODUCT LIABILITY SETTLEMENT

SUMMARY OF ACCIDENT

This case involves the wrongful death of an employee, who was fatally injured while operating an industrial lathe machine. The plaintiff loaded a steel bar into the lathe machine. Approximately 2-feet of the bar extended beyond the confines of the machine. There were no fail safes designed into the machine to protect end users from the known hazards when using the machine with unprotected extended bars. Once the pre-calculated program was initiated on the machine, the bar spun at 2500RPM in 1.7 seconds causing it to bend, warp, and whip, ultimately striking the employee in the left shoulder and head. The whipping steel bar partially severed the employee’s left arm who later succumbed to his injuries.

OUR OBJECTIVE

Attorney Richard Sullivan retained TTS to create an animation of how the incident took place, allowing for jurors to better understand the complexities of the machine and usage. Our objectives were:

• Show how the industrial lathe machine operates.

• Establish how difficult it is to see the steel stock once it has begun to spin and bend. 

• Demonstrate the horrific scenario that the employee endured because the machine did not have a fail safe.  

PART 1: SHOW HOW THE MACHINE WORKS

We started the animation with a visual of the length of steel stock that was placed into the lathe, and the approximate 2 feet of bar that extended beyond the confines of the machine. 

Once the pre-calculated program was initiated on the machine, we see the bar spun at 2500RPM in 1.7 seconds causing it to bend, warp, and whip.

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PART 2: DEMONSTRATE THE MECHANISM OF INJURY

We then showed the employee working at the machine. It was important to establish just how quickly the bar began to spin and warp once he initiated the sequence. 

It was equally important to demonstrate how the bar was not visible because of how fast it was spinning.  When the employee walked over to check what was wrong, the bar struck the employee in the left shoulder and head. 

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