Background Stationary sawing machinery is often a basic tool in the wood product manufacturing industry and was the source for over 2,500 injury/illness events that resulted in days away from work in 2010. Methods We examined 9 years of workers’ compensation claims for the state of Ohio in wood product manufacturing with specific attention to saw-related claims. For the study period, 8,547 claims were evaluated; from this group, 716 saw-related cases were examined. Results The sawmills and wood preservation sub-sector experienced a 71% reduction in average incidence rate and an 87% reduction in average lost-time incidence rate from 2001 to 2009. The top three injury category descriptions for lost-time incidents within saw-related claims were fracture (35.8%), open wounds (29.6%), and amputation (14.8%). Conclusions For saw-related injuries, preventing blade contact remains important but securing the work piece to prevent kickback is also important.

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This paper describes a procedure developed and validated to assess the accuracy of an infrared-based motion measurement system used to perform a kinematic analysis of the torso with respect to the pelvis during simulated lifting tasks. Two rigid reflective marker triads were designed and fabricated for attachment to the thorax over the 6th thoracic vertebra and the pelvis. System accuracy was assessed for planar rotation as well as rotations about multiple orthogonal axes. A test fixture was used to validate known triad orientations. The spatial coordinates of these triads were collected at 120 Hz using a ProReflex motion measurement system. Single value decomposition was used to estimate a rotation matrix describing the rigid body motion of the thorax triad relative to the sacral triad at each point in time. Euler angles corresponding to flexion, lateral bending, and twisting were computed from the rotation matrix. All measurement error residuals for flexion, lateral bending, and twisting were below 1.75°. The estimated mean measurement errors were less than 1° in all three planes. These results suggest that the motion measurement system is reliable and accurate to within approximately 1.5° for the angles examined.