OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14346902
ASPHYXIATED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,STRUCK BY,UNSTABLE SOIL,SLOPING,CAVE-IN,CONTUSION
Event description
One employee killed, one injured in trench collapse
Investigation abstract
At approximately 3:45 p.m. Employees #1 and #2 were in a trench that measured ap th wall fell on them. Employee #1 died of asphyxia and Employee #2 was hospitali zed for body bruises. It was Employee #1's first day on the job for this employe r, although he had previous work experience in this field, and it was Employee # 2's second day on the job. proximately 8 ft deep and 4 1/2 ft wide (slightly more than bucket width). They worked for a small company that had been contracted to lay 8 inch PVC sewer pipe in preparation for the construction of a mobile home park. The trench, which wa s being dug by a backhoe, widened out at the top to between 5 and 7 ft. The top two feet of soil appeared to be primarily sand; below that was a mixture of clay , hard gumbo, limerock, and sand. Rain or drizzle had fallen on and off for abou t 5 hours. The employees were in the bottom of the trench, waiting for pipe to b e handed to them, when a 20 ft long, 5 ft wide, and 8 ft deep section of the nor
Victims (2)
-
#1 Fatality Age 43 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 5
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 24 M
- Nature of injury
- 3
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- 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.