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 #14251516

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

Event
INSTALLING,SUFFOCATED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,BURIED,CAVE-IN
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14251516
Report ID
453710

Event description

Employee killed in trench cave-in

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 and three coworkers were installing a sewer line of 8 in. vitrified focation. clay pipe at an apartment project under construction. Employee #1 and one cowork er were in an 84 ft long by 11 ft deep trench that measured 4 ft wide at the bot tom and 11 ft wide at the top and ran generally north to south. A 25 ft long by 6 ft 2 in. high by 17 ft 3 in. wide spoil pile was located on the edge of its ea stern side. Employee #1 was lubricating a section of pipe when a piece of sandro ck weighing between 500 and 1,000 lb sheared off the eastern wall, covering him. He was buried between 5 and 10 minutes before being rescued. Employee #1 was tr ansported to High Point Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead from suf

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 54 M

    Nature of injury
    2
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    2
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    558
    Human factor
    17
    Environmental factor
    6
    Hazardous substance
    8880
    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.