OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14297576
WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,UNSTABLE SOIL,SLOPING,BURIED,CAVE-IN,BACKHOE
Event description
Two employees injured in trench cave-in
Investigation abstract
At 10:00 a.m. on October 17, 1985, Employees #1 and #2 were working in a trench, laying a PVC sewer lateral line T-fitting. The trench was 39 ft long by 7 1/2 t o 8 ft wide by 8 to 9 ft deep. The soil was moist sand and the trench was neithe r shored nor sloped. The foreman tracked a backhoe from one end of the trench to the other, passing within 10 ft of the trench. After the backhoe passed, a sect ion of the trench wall sloughed off, burying Employee #1 completely and covering Employee #2 to his knees. Employee #1 was hospitalized. The company, which stat ed knowledge of trenching requirements, is alleged to be in violation of 29CFR 1 926-652(b) and 29CFR 1926 651(i)(1), both recommended as serious violations.
Victims (2)
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 19 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 3
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 869
- Human factor
- 17
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 19 M
- Nature of injury
- 7
- Part of body
- 15
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 869
- Human factor
- 17
- Environmental factor
- 6
- 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.