Federal workplace safety officials are investigating a Kansas grain bin accident in which a worker’s leg got caught in a running auger and was later amputated.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Tuesday that the 28-year-old Ellsworth Co-op worker had his left leg surgically removed Monday after the accident.
OSHA says in a statement that the unidentified worker stepped into an open auger well inside a steel grain bin while the auger was operational.
As OSHA’s regional chief in Wichita, Judy Freeman says workers should never enter such bins when an auger is running.
The co-op’s general manager and president, Larry Sheridan, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that OSHA investigators haven’t been to that site since the accident and that he had no comment.