As a worker at OURHOME's Yongin plant in Gyeonggi remains in critical condition after becoming trapped in machinery, a police investigation found that the plant's machine did not have a safety cover or an emergency stop device installed.
According to Yongin Dongbu Police Station on the 9th, police conducted an on-site investigation over two days starting the previous day, when the accident occurred, and confirmed that the conveyor belt where the accident happened did not have a safety cover or an emergency stop device installed.
A safety cover covers the top of a conveyor belt to prevent entrapment accidents. An emergency stop device is equipment that, when a button is pressed in an emergency, stops the machine to minimize harm.
The head of the subcontractor employing the injured worker also said in a police interview the previous day that "because the accident machine did not have safety devices installed, multiple requests for improvements were made to OURHOME."
The Serious Accident Investigation Team of the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency's Major Crime Investigation Unit has taken over the case from Yongin Dongbu Police Station and is reviewing it. If it is found that the company failed to take sufficient measures to prevent the accident, it plans to book the person responsible on charges of occupational negligence resulting in injury and seek punishment.
At about 2:50 p.m. on the 8th, at the fish cake skewer packaging line on the fourth floor of OURHOME's Yongin Plant 2 in Namsa-eup, Cheoin-gu, Yongin, Gyeonggi, a subcontracted worker in her 50s, identified only as A, suffered an accident in which her neck was caught in a conveyor belt. Police believe the accident occurred when the hood (sanitary cap) A was wearing during work became entangled in the conveyor belt machine. A was rescued in cardiac arrest and, as of the second day after the accident, remains unconscious and is receiving treatment.
At the same OURHOME Yongin Plant 2 where this accident occurred, a worker in their 30s suffered cardiac arrest after their neck was caught in a cooling machine on Apr. 4 last year and died five days after being taken to a hospital.