A worker at a factory at Tema Community 20 in the Greater Accra Region has been found dead in the machine he was working with.
The mutilated body of Emmanuel Azanmessou was found stuck in the machine last Thursday.
A manager of the company, who pleaded anonymity, told the Daily Graphic that a metal from the running machine must have struck Azanmessou’s head.
The body of the 23-year-old worker has since been deposited at the Police Hospital in Accra.
Investigations
The Public Relations Officer of the Accra Regional Police Command, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Effia Tenge, confirmed the incident to the Daily Graphic, and said officials of the company reported to the police that Azanmessou was found in the gum making machine about 10:10 a.m. last Thursday.
She said police investigators went to the scene and found the body in the mixing machine.
Preliminary investigations, she said, revealed that he might have failed to switch off the machine during some routine operations around it as required by the safety procedures of the company.
As a result, the right arm of Azanmessou got stuck in the gum, and in the process of disentangling himself, his right arm got severed.
When Azanmessou was found, his head and left arm had also been damaged severely.
The police removed the body from the machine and conveyed it to the Police Hospital morgue for preservation and autopsy.
Workplace hazard, safety
Researchers, Dr Kwesi Amponsah-Tawiah and Dr Kwasi Dartey-Baah, in a publication on occupational health and safety in Ghana, estimated that the annual number of factory-related accidents and illnesses was more than two million.
Some of these accidents were reported to arise due to exposure to workplace hazards, including cutting equipment, operation of machinery, collision with objects, falls, burns and contact with corrosive chemicals.
