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 #14304984

UNCONSCIOUSNESS,FRONT END LOADER,SAND,WORK RULES,EQUIPMENT OPERATOR,CONSTRUCTION,STRUCK BY,UNSTABLE SOIL,BURIED,FALLING OBJECT

Event
UNCONSCIOUSNESS,FRONT END LOADER,SAND,WORK RULES,EQUIPMENT OPERATOR,CONSTRUCTION,STRUCK BY,UNSTABLE SOIL,BURIED,FALLING OBJECT
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14304984
Report ID
1050210

Event description

Equipment operator hospitalized when 65 ft sandbank collapse

Investigation abstract

Employee #1, a front end loader operator, was undermining a 65 ft high bank of s sustained cuts and bruises, was hospitalized. He should have used proper safety procedures and not let the slope of the bank exceed the angle of repose. and and gravel that had a slope of 80 to 85 percent. He was to finish underminin g the bank and move away from it before the sun heated up the ground and caused the sand and gravel to fall. However, Employee #1 and the owner had misjudged th e timing: the bank came down about two hours before they thought it would. The f alling sand and gravel struck the front end loader, pushing it back about 8 ft a nd almost covering it. Employee #1 was covered up to his neck and was struck wit h the front windows and the falling sand and gravel. His head broke through the back window of the loader and he was knocked unconscious. Employee #1, who also

Victim

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 31 M

    Nature of injury
    3
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    1
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    853
    Human factor
    11
    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.