105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #1005644

EXCAVATION,FRACTURE,SHOULDER,WORK RULES,INHALATION,RIB,BURIED,CAVE-IN,ANKLE

Event
EXCAVATION,FRACTURE,SHOULDER,WORK RULES,INHALATION,RIB,BURIED,CAVE-IN,ANKLE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
1005644
Report ID
253680

Event description

Employee injured when buried in cave-in

Investigation abstract

On March 15, 1989, Employee #1 and three coworkers were attempting to locate a w ion and ingestion of dirt. As of March 20, 1989, he remained hospitalized in sta ble condition. ater line break in a campus water system using a power shovel to excavate the pr obable break area. At 9:45 p.m., Employee #1 entered the excavation to see if th e water line had been reached. As he started to hand shovel dirt at the bottom, a side wall collapsed and buried him completely. The rescue squad was called and the crew supervisor then entered the excavation to locate Employee #1 and to at tempt to free his head. The rescue squad arrived and administered oxygen during the 45 minutes necessary to free him. Employee #1 was taken by ambulance to Hami lton Hospital, suffering from a fractured clavicle, ribs, and ankle, and inhalat

Victim

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 30 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    14
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    869
    Human factor
    17
    Environmental factor
    6
    Task assigned
    2

Codes shown verbatim from OSHA's accident-investigation database. A human-readable decoder is coming in a future release once the accident_lookup2 dictionary is loaded.