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Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14251425

WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,BURIED,CAVE-IN

Event
WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,BURIED,CAVE-IN
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14251425
Report ID
453710

Event description

Employee killed in trench cave-in

Investigation abstract

At approximately 4:45 p.m. on April 7, 1987, Employee #1 and a coworker, both of not seriously injured. Shackelford Paving Company, were working in a trench at the Wesley Long Communi ty Hospital in Greensboro, NC. The trench measured 41 ft 6 in. long by 6 ft 1in. wide by 18 ft deep and ran generally north to south. Employee #1 and the cowork er were clearing the bottom of the trench so that pipe could be laid when the tr ench walls on the southwestern side began to collapse. As the cave-in continued along the entire west wall of the trench, a warning was shouted to the workers. Employee #1 became caught by the collapsing dirt and was buried. He was dug out and pronounced dead at the hospital at approximately 6:45 p.m. The coworker was

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 23 M

    Nature of injury
    2
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    2
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    869
    Human factor
    17
    Environmental factor
    6
    Hazardous substance
    8880
    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.