OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14301527
H & S ENTERPRISES
GALLUP, NM·
Event description
Employee killed in excavation cave-in
Investigation abstract
At approximately 4:30 p.m. on July 13, 1988, Employee #1 was taking a break with three coworkers after installing three 8 ft by 27 ft gasoline tanks into a 33 f t 11 in wide by 33 ft long by 10 ft 3 in. deep excavation. The perimeters of the tanks had been backfilled with approximately 4 1/2 feet of sand that had been t rucked to the site. The employees were sitting sat in the 5 foot deep southwest corner of the excavation, waiting for additional sand. Three of the workers thou ght they heard a noise when the embankment suddenly broke loose. Employee #1 was knocked against the southernmost tank and was completely covered with dirt. He later died at an area hospital.
Victims (2)
-
#1 Fatality Age 34 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 587
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 8
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#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.