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 #14255343

PINNED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,UNSTABLE SOIL,SLOPING,BURIED,CAVE-IN

Event
PINNED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,UNSTABLE SOIL,SLOPING,BURIED,CAVE-IN
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14255343
Report ID
453710

Event description

Employee injured in trench cave-in

Investigation abstract

At approximately 12:45 p.m. on March 26, 1986, Employee #1 was preparing to lay a length of pipe in a trench that was 20 ft long by 32 in. wide by 64 in. deep. The trench had been excavated in damp clay soil. The vertical walls were neither shored nor otherwise protected. Employee #1 had just graded the trench and was preparing to climb out so that the pipe could be inserted when a portion of the west wall caved in. He was pinned against the east bank and partially covered wi th soil. Employee #1 was hospitalized with serious internal injuries to the ches t.

Victim

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 29 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    5
    Event type
    1
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    587
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    18
    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.