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 #14212922

FRACTURE,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,BURIED,CAVE-IN,LEG

Event
FRACTURE,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,BURIED,CAVE-IN,LEG
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14212922
Report ID
521700

Event description

One employee dies after buried in trench cave-in

Investigation abstract

Employees #1 and #2 were standing on an 8 foot diameter sewer pipe that was bein g installed by a contractor. The depth of the trench was about 20 feet and the e mployees were approximately 12 feet below the top of the trench wall. A trench b ox had been in use, but had been removed due to complications. The employees wer e directing the backhoe operator when the west wall of the trench caved in and c overed them both. Employee #2 was able to dig himself out while Employee #1 sust ained a severely broken leg and had to be dug out by rescue personnel. Employee #1 died later in the day at the hospital.

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 42 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    1
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    9
    Environmental factor
    6
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Hospitalized Age 35 M

    Nature of injury
    20
    Part of body
    3
    Event type
    1
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    9
    Environmental factor
    6
    Task assigned
    1

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.