OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14305866
PINNED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,CARDIAC ARREST,SHORING,SLOPING,CAVE-IN
Event description
Employee killed in trench cave-in
Investigation abstract
At approximately 3:00 p.m. on February 13, 1986, Employee #1 was working with a and ran back through the trench into the area of the slide. He was pinned in an upright position against the north wall. The falling dirt held together and did not crumble, leaving his head and feet uncovered. It took approximately 40 minu tes to dig him out. Employee #1 died shortly after arriving at the hospital of c ardiac arrest resulting from blunt chest trauma. 5-man crew that was laying an 81 in. PVC sewer pipe in a 45 ft long, 2 ft wide, and 7 ft deep trench. This was their second day back on the job after rain and s now had delayed work for about a week. The trench walls, which were almost verti cal, had been stepped down to create an approximately 18 in. bench at about the 5 ft level. Employee #1, who was alone in the trench, had just given a grade sho vel to the trackhoe operator when a crack opened up along the south wall of the trench. Within seconds after being alerted about the dangerous 12 ft long crack, which was to the left of and behind Employee #1, he evidently panicked, turned,
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 21 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 5
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 14
- Environmental factor
- 13
- 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.