Researchers use the term "unintentional injury" to refer to injuries that are non-volitional but preventable. All wood turning injuries fall into this definition – they are not “accidents.”

A significant proportion of lathe injuries are hand injuries however the more important number is how many head, severe facial & eye injuries and traumatic brain injuries (TBI’s) are there from wood turning? Due to the mechanism of injury, many lathe injuries tend to have long treatment, hospitalization & recovery times.

The most significant messages from the research on DIY injury relevant to wood lathes are,

  • Hand tools, table saws & grinders (angle, bench etc) cause the most numerous injuries,
  • Slips, trips & falls associated with workshops feature significantly for “older persons.”
  • Falls from ladders kill far more DIYer’s than all other causes of death associated with DIY combined,
  • Lower torso & leg injuries from the lathe are almost non-existent (shielded by the tool rest & lathe bed),
  • Hand & finger injuries are very common,
  • Severe facial & eye injuries are common,
  • Traumatic brain injuries are very significant proportional to the numbers of injuries to wood turners (and to older persons), and in terms of hospitalization time.
  • the wood lathe is by far the most likely machine in a wood shop to actually be involved in the death of a wood worker. Other machines maim but don’t knock people unconscious.
  • the cause of death at the lathe usually involves working alone, an unstable work piece, an oops moment, a flying object with significant mass & velocity, severe head injury, being rendered incapable of getting assistance, then being undiscovered for some time.
  • Often there are other medical conditions (pre-existing? or otherwise) that may have contributed to the cause of the injury / death at the wood lathe.


“Common” simply means common in terms of the reported statistics relative to total figures. In terms of injuries per 100,000 wood workers per year or per wood turning man hour we really don’t know. In most lathe fatalities we don’t know the details but we do know what are the typical mechanisms of injury and the scenarios in which they occur.

Look up Lynne Yamaguchi’s blog. Lynne’s story is so typical of the potential horrific injuries sustained.

The good news much of this is very avoidable using prudent and proven “safe turning techniques.”