Grinder Injury of the Hand: A Rare but Devastating Occupational Hazard
Tushar Patial, MBBS, MS,1 Rajinder K. Mittal, MBBS, MS, MCh,1 Ramneesh Garg, MBBS, MS, MCh,1 Sheerin Shah, MBBS, MS, MCh,1 and Amandeep Kaur, MBBS, MS, MCh1
Surg J (N Y). 2021 Oct; 7(4): e297–e300.Published online 2021 Oct 22. doi: 10.1055/s-0041-1735902
PMCID: PMC8536650PMID: 34703888
Case Report
Case 1
A 22-year-old male patient presented to the emergency with his left hand caught in a commercial meat grinder. After partly dismantling the grinder, the patient was brought to our hospital, with the hand still caught in the grinder ( Fig. 1 ). The patient was taken to the operation theater and after giving general anesthesia, a welder was brought in to cut across the thick metallic components of the grinder using a cutting torch. After removal of the outer shell, the hand was found to have extensive crush injuries. Three discrete longitudinal wounds were present over the fingers, the distal palmar crease, and the distal wrist crease corresponding to the worm of the grinder ( Figs. 2 and and 3 ). No bleeding was seen from the wounds till the level of the wrist and the bones of the distal to the wrist were completely crushed with exposure of the underlying tendons ( Fig. 4 ). After washing out the wound with povidone-iodine and saline, a disarticulation was performed at the level of the wrist ( Fig. 5 ). The postoperative period was uneventful, and the patient was discharged after 1 day. He was followed closely in the outpatient department but refused prosthesis and reconstructive surgery for the injury.
Fig. 1
The left hand caught within the meat grinder.
Fig. 2
Lateral view of the left hand after removal of the outer shell.
Fig. 3
Dorsal view of the left hand after removal of the outer shell.
Fig. 4
Palmar view of the left hand after removal of the outer shell.
Fig. 5
Postdisarticulation volar view.
References
1. Ministry of Food Processing Industries GoI . Annual Report 2019. Accessed Aug 11, 2021 from:https://mofpi.nic.in/documents/reports/annual-report2. Salminger S, Roche A D, Sturma A, Mayer J A, Aszmann O C. Hand transplantation versus hand prosthetics: pros and cons. Curr Surg Rep. 2016;4(02):8. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]3. Neumeister M W, Brown R E.Mutilating hand injuries: principles and management Hand Clin 200319011–15., v [PubMed] [Google Scholar]4. Tomoda S. Geneva, Switzerland: International Labour Organization; 1993. Occupational Safety and Health in the Food and Drink Industries. [Google Scholar]5. Brandner M, Bunkis J, Trengove-Jones G. Meat grinder injuries to the upper extremity. Ann Plast Surg. 1985;14(05):454–457. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]6. Yildiran G, Selimoglu M N, Akdag O, Karamese M, Tosun Z. A periodical increase in hand injuries: the sacrifice feast. Hand Microsurg. 2015;4(02):28–31. [Google Scholar]7. Green D P, Terry G C, Whittemore A K. Extrication of the hand from a meat grinder. J Trauma. 1975;15(01):32–35. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]8. Kassa B. Meat grinder hand injuries: serial cases. MOJ Clin Med Case Rep. 2017;6(06):135–137. [Google Scholar]9. Lubis N R. Meat grinder injury to the hand: serial cases. Ind J Orthop. 2012;40(03):90615. [Google Scholar]10. OSHA fact sheet: Preventing Cuts and Amputations from Food Slicers and Meat Grinders 2015. Accessed Aug 11, 2021 from:https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3794.pdf
Articles from The Surgery Journal are provided here courtesy of Thieme Medical Publishers
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8536650/
Copyright The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.