OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14234074
ASPHYXIATED,COLLAPSE,SUFFOCATED,CONSTRUCTION,TORSO,TRENCH
Event description
EMPLOYEE KILLED IN TRENCH CAVE IN
Investigation abstract
On March 13, 1989, workers were laying an 8 inch polyvinyl chloride sewer line i he soil. It has been determined that the sides of the trench were not sloped pro perly. n a trench section 26 foot long by 12 foot deep by 30 inches wide at the bottom by 20 foot wide at the top. Employee #1 entered the trench in order to seal a pi pe joint at the bottom of the trench. While in the trench, a section of the west wall near the bottom of the trench kicked out, burying Employee #1 up to his kn ees. Approximately two seconds later, a large section of the west wall caved off completely, burying Employee #1. By the time Employee #1 was freed, there were no vital signs. It should be noted that there was no shoring, sheeting, trench b oxes or equipment as means of protection in use because of the sandy nature of t
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 39 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 5
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 6
- 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.