Spiral Cooling Conveyor

■ Role: Cools freshly made products to enable packaging

■ Size: Height 5m, Width 6m, Depth 6m

■ Operation Method: Conveyor belt slowly rotates counterclockwise in a spiral shape to cool products

■ Manufacturing Date: Unknown

■ Introduction Date: 1995

■ Safety Features: Emergency stop button installed on the outer side of the circular conveyor belt

The space between the central axis and the conveyor belt was just enough for one woman to crouch down.

Mr. Yang began spraying lubricant on the conveyor belt under the dark machine. Suddenly, his hand got caught on the conveyor belt.

There was no emergency stop button at the lower part of the machine where Mr. Yang went to work to stop the machine.

According to the police, Mr. Yang's body entered between the pillar of the spiral cooling conveyor and the conveyor belt, starting from his hand, then his arm, shoulder, and chest.

Mr. Yang died due to multiple fractures in his arm, torso, and head.

The pressure and fractures caused by the machine's force as it pulled Mr. Yang's chest in led to his death.

Dough Lift

■ Role: Feeding dough into the divider

■ Size: Height 2m30cm, Width 1m18cm, Depth 89cm

■ Operation method: Bowl containing dough moves up and down

■ Manufacturing date: August 2020

■ Introduction date: March 2023

■ Safety device: Emergency stop button installed on lift column

Mr. Go extended his arm by pressing his abdomen against the divider. His body was naturally positioned between the lift and the divider.

As Mr. Lee moved, he pressed the automatic descent button, and the mixing ball continued to descend without stopping. At the site, it is said, "When work is busy, people often press the machine button first and go to do other tasks."

Mr. Go did not see the emergency stop button hidden behind the column and the mixing ball descending at 11.5 cm per second. He got caught between the conveyor surrounding the mixing ball and the divider.

Under tremendous pressure, Mr. Go went into cardiac arrest.

Mr. Go died due to intestinal rupture caused by abdominal compression. Ordinary impacts do not usually lead to death from intestinal rupture.

Intestinal rupture occurs only when the upper body width is compressed to less than half its normal size.

Sauce Mixer (Agitator)

■ Role: Sauce ingredient blending

■ Size: Width 2m40cm Height 1m5cm

■ Operation method: Mixing container blade rotates 18 times per minute

■ Manufacturing date: Unknown

■ Introduction date: 2019

■ Safety device: Emergency stop button installed on the right control panel

Mr. Park put his hand into the machine with the lid open to loosen the clumped sauce.

The machine's rotating blades spun 18 times per minute.

Mr. Park's right arm got caught in the sauce mixer blades. However, the emergency stop button was 1.08 meters away, requiring him to take a step to press it.

He tensed his right arm to avoid being pulled in, but the reaction caused his body to flip 180 degrees.

Other workers, including the safety team, found Mr. Park and removed the sauce, but he died at the scene.

The cause of death was airway obstructive asphyxiation. The blue part in the graphic indicates asphyxiation, and the red part indicates a fracture in the right arm.

The usual time until death by asphyxiation is six minutes. However, medical experts say consciousness can be lost within one minute. The time he had to escape the dangerous situation on his own was only one minute.

SPC imports most of its bread-making machines as custom-made equipment and conducts safety inspections. However, three workers have died in entrapment accidents at its factories. The circumstances found at the scenes of these fatalities-such as intervening while machines are running, lack of or malfunctioning safety devices, and emergency stop buttons placed out of reach-point to human error caused by lax management that fails to enforce proper procedures.

The victims of fatal machine entrapment accidents at SPC were working with their bodies pushed into moving machines. On May 19, 2025, Ms. Yang (55, female), who was working at the SPC Samlip factory in Siheung, died after her upper body became trapped in the lower part of the "spiral cooling conveyor" while spraying lubricant. The cause of the accident was that she entered the operating spiral cooling conveyor to perform maintenance.

Yonhap News Agency

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Similarly, Ms. Go (55, female), who died after being trapped in the "dough lift" at the Shani factory in Seongnam on August 8, 2023, was working around an operating machine without any particular restriction. According to Article 29 of the Industrial Safety and Health Standards, maintenance, cleaning, replacement, or adjustment of transport machinery such as lifts must be performed only after the machine is stopped. However, the two workers handling the accident machine were operating the lift while replacing the nozzle to change the dough portion size.

Ms. Park (23, female), who died at the SPL factory in Pyeongtaek on October 15, 2022, also reached her hand into the operating "sauce mixer" to loosen clumped sauce. Ten years prior to the accident, the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency had already stipulated that machines used for food processing must be stopped when workers' fingers are brought close to the equipment.

Even when workers inevitably violated regulations and approached operating machines, there were no devices at the accident scenes to prevent or alert them to dangerous situations. The warning sound on the dough lift at the Shani Seongnam factory did not function properly. This is why Ms. Go was unable to notice the mixing bowl descending and became trapped.

The sauce mixer should also be equipped with a cover on the mixing container to prevent hands from entering. If the cover must be opened, an interlock device that automatically stops the machine should be mandatory. An interlock is a device that automatically stops the machine when a specific condition, such as the cover being opened, occurs. However, the sauce mixer used by Ms. Park did not have an interlock.

The operation of the "Spiral Cooling Conveyor" at the SPC Samlip factory in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province, where an accident occurred at 3 a.m. on May 19 this year, was recreated in 3D. Mr. Yang entered the lower part of the operating machine to spray lubricant. There was no emergency stop button on the lower part of the machine. Studio Uta

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In the case of the spiral cooling conveyor, installing a fence with an interlock could have prevented the accident. Even if not a fence, other types of braking devices, such as a pull cord to stop the machine, are available. Professor Seo Yongyun of the Department of Industrial Systems Engineering at Dongguk University stated, "The failure to install a fence is a clear violation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act," and added, "It is also a basic principle to install safety devices to prevent fingers from being caught between conveyor belts, but this was not followed."

Factory workers must be able to press the emergency stop button in dangerous situations while working. Article 88 of the Industrial Safety Rules stipulates that employers must install machine power cut-off devices in locations where workers can operate them without moving away from their work position.

The accident that occurred on October 14, 2022, at the sauce mixer in the SPL factory in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, was recreated in 3D. The emergency stop button was located on the right control panel but was out of reach without moving closer. Studio Uta

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Ms. Park's right arm got caught in the rotating blade, causing her head to be pulled into the mixing container. Ms. Park's height was 160 cm, and the average arm length for a woman of that height is about 55 cm. However, the distance from the right end of the mixing container to the emergency stop button was 108 cm-an unreachable distance without moving.

The accident that occurred on August 8, 2023, at 12:33 PM at the Shani factory in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, while working on the "dough lift" was recreated in 3D. Although workers were adjusting the dough quantity and performing other tasks, they were able to approach the machine. There was no warning sound, making it impossible to avoid the accident. Studio Uta

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The same was true for Ms. Go. The emergency stop button on the dough lift was located on the control panel attached to the left column of the mixing bowl, along with the up and down buttons. During nozzle replacement work on the dough lift, the worker had to stand behind the column, making the control panel invisible from her position. At the time of the accident, Ms. Go was raising her arm to replace the nozzle, with her upper body and head facing the opposite direction from the emergency stop button.

The spiral cooling conveyor was also designed so that there was no reason for a person to enter the lower part, and thus no emergency stop button was installed there. If there was an unavoidable work procedure that required a worker to enter the lower part, an emergency stop button should have been installed in that area. The emergency stop button that could halt the machine was located on a control panel out of reach from the lower part of the conveyor belt.