Background: This article examines serious and fatal pneumatic nail gun (PNG) injury investigations for workplace, tool design, and human factors relevant to causation and resulting OS&H authorities' responses in terms of citations and penalties.
Methods: The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) database of Fatality and Catastrophe Investigation Summaries (F&CIS) were reviewed (1985-2012) to identify n = 258 PNG accidents.
Results: 79.8% of investigations, and 100% of fatalities, occurred in the construction industry. Between 53-71% of injuries appear to have been preventable had a safer sequential trigger tool been used. Citations and monetary penalties were related to injury severity, body part injured, disabling of safety devices, and insufficient personal protective equipment (PPE).
Conclusions: Differences may exist between construction and other industries in investigators interpretations of PNG injury causation and resulting citations/penalties. Violations of PPE standards were penalized most severely, yet the preventive effect of PPE would likely have been less than that of a safer sequential trigger.
Keywords: accident investigation; pneumatic nail gun; struck by; traumatic injury; trigger safety.
Published 2016. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.