November 9th 2023.
In a tragic accident, a South Korean worker was crushed to death by a robot in the South Geyongsand region. The worker had been inspecting the robot's sensor when the robot arm, programmed to lift boxes of vegetables, mistook him for a box and grabbed him onto the conveyor belt. The man, in his forties, suffered severe injuries to his face and body from the conveyor belt, leading to his death.
It appears that the robot had been experiencing issues days before the incident and was undergoing maintenance. Following the accident, the Dongseong Export Agricultural Complex, which owns the plant, called for a ‘precise and safe’ system to be established.
A study in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine reported that 41 people were killed by industrial robots in the United States between 1992 and 2017, with almost four out of five of the deaths taking place during the maintenance of the robots. A similar incident occurred in 2020 when a UPS worker died after becoming stuck on a mail sorting conveyor belt at a warehouse. The worker had been without oxygen for 10 minutes before succumbing to his injuries. In 2018, a factory worker in Bedfordshire also died after becoming trapped between two rollers.
Clearly, such unfortunate events need to be avoided at all costs. The safety of workers must be taken seriously in order to prevent similar occurrences in the future.
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