OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14253090
FRACTURE,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,PELVIS,UNSTABLE SOIL,SLOPING,BURIED,CAVE-IN
Event description
Employee injured in trench cave-in
Investigation abstract
On March 1, 1989, workers were laying a 12 in. ductile iron water main in a tren ped before he reached safety. He was covered to his hips, with a piece of cement ed soil, or pavement, against his hip. Employee #1 suffered a fractured pelvis a nd a torn urethra. The coworker reported that he was struck by soil, but escaped injury. ch 5 to 5 1/2 ft deep, in the roadway of a paved road. The backhoe had just fini shed digging and was preparing to hoist the next pipe joint. A small compactor w as in the trench, compacting soil over the last two lengths of pipe laid. The tr ench was parallel to an existing sewer line. Employee #1 and a coworker were in the trench preparing to lay a third pipe. Employee #1, a pipelayer, was using a shovel to level grade the trench bottom. At about 9:30 a.m., soil fell from unde r pavement along the west wall of the trench (the sewer line side). Employee #1 saw it coming and ran in the direction of the previously laid pipe, but was trap
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 37 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 14
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 585
- Human factor
- 17
- Environmental factor
- 4
- 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.