Abstract: A device for and method of preventing accidents caused by jamming of a tool when working with hand-operated machine tools driving a rotating tool, especially hammer drills, is outfitted with an interrupter device for interrupting the action of the driving motor on the rotating tool depending on the operating state detected by a deflection sensor (1). The device includes a computer unit (R) in which a probability for an expected accident is determined from the sensor signals supplied by the deflection sensor (1), and in that the interrupter device (5, 6) can be activated when a preset accident probability is exceeded. In the method rotational movement values are determined from the measurement signals supplied by the deflection sensor (1), these rotational movement values are converted in a computer unit (R) by nonlinear logic operations to form accident probabilities and activating the interrupter device as soon as the estimated accident probability exceeds a preadjustable threshold value.