104,543Records 70,659Employers 84,666Hospitalizations 27,563Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-09-30
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14257026

SUFFOCATED,HEART ATTACK,WORK RULES,SHORING,CAVE-IN,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SLOPING,BURIED,SPRAIN

Event
SUFFOCATED,HEART ATTACK,WORK RULES,SHORING,CAVE-IN,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SLOPING,BURIED,SPRAIN
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14257026
Report ID
453710

Event description

One killed, one injured in cave-in; foreman has heart attack

Investigation abstract

Employees #1 and #2 were laying 5 ft lengths of 8 in. diameter sewer pipe in an sprained ankle. Employee #3, the foreman, was not in the trench but suffered wha t appeared to be a heart attack after he assisted in the rescue operation. He wa s hospitalized. unshored and unsloped trench that was 5 ft wide by 11 ft deep. A backhoe was dig ging the trench and Employees #1 and #2 were laying pipe to within 10 to 20 ft o f the end of the trench. The trenching had progressed to a partially excavated a nd enlarged manhole location about 230 ft east of the starting point. Employee # 2 was using a laser to check the grade in the manhole area and Employee #1 was a bout 10 to 15 ft to the west when a 24 ft length of the trench collapsed to the west of the manhole. Employee #1 was completely buried with soil and died of suf focation. Employee #2 was covered to his chest, but suffered only bruises and a

Victims (4)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 26 M

    Nature of injury
    2
    Part of body
    28
    Event type
    2
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    599
    Human factor
    17
    Environmental factor
    6
    Hazardous substance
    8880
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 23 M

    Nature of injury
    20
    Part of body
    11
    Event type
    2
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    599
    Human factor
    17
    Environmental factor
    6
    Hazardous substance
    8880
    Task assigned
    1
  3. #3 Hospitalized Age 43 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    29
    Event type
    14
    Source
    43
    Occupation code
    558
    Human factor
    7
    Environmental factor
    18
    Hazardous substance
    8880
    Task assigned
    1
  4. #981 Degree 0 Age 0

    Nature of injury
    0
    Part of body
    0
    Event type
    0
    Source
    0
    Occupation code
    0
    Human factor
    0
    Environmental factor
    0
    Task assigned
    0

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.