A worker at an East Farmingdale food packing factory severed three of his fingertips on Wednesday evening in what the Suffolk police called an industrial accident.

The worker, 45-year-old Elmer Rios, of North Amityville, was operating a food-dicing machine when he put his hand inside the machine to clean it and "three of his fingertips were cut off," a police news release said . The severed fingertips were on his right hand, the police press office wrote in an email.

The incident happened around 7:35 p.m. at L&S Packing Company , 101 Central Ave., where Rios was working, according to the release, which said the police notified the Occupational Safety and Health Administration , the U.S. workplace safety agency.

A man who answered at a telephone number registered to an L&S official

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