An employee was pulling cow hides out of a 12-foot-deep hide pool using a long handled, stainless steel hook. The employee was pulling the hides to the edge of the pool, locating the hole in the hide, and hanging the hide on a hide-chain hook for it to travel to the folding table. One end of the long hook got caught on the forward chain hook. Then quickly caught the second hide-chain hook. As the chain hooks got farther apart, the two hooks began to pull the long hook. The employee was attempting to pull the long hook out of the two hooks when their right thumb was caught in a pinch point, resulting in amputation.