OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14224505
FRACTURE,WALL,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SKULL,PIPE,CAVE-IN
Event description
EMPLOYEE KILLED WHEN TRENCH CAVES IN
Investigation abstract
At approximately 10:15 a.m. on June 5, 1987, Employee #1 prepared a grade in a 9 -ft-4-in-to-10-ft-8-in.-deep by 6-ft-wide trench. When Employee # 1 was waiting for a 12-foot section of an 8 in. polyvinyl chloride (PVC) sewer pipe, the belly area of the north wall caved in knocking Employee #1 against the south wall. Bo th the north and south walls were vertical and unshored. Employee #1 was complet ely covered with dirt and soft brown shale. Employee #1 sustained extensive skul l fractures with cerebral trauma and died.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 34 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 869
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 4
- 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.