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 #14382444

TRENCH BOX,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,BURIED,CAVE-IN

Event
TRENCH BOX,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,BURIED,CAVE-IN
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14382444
Report ID
521400

Event description

Employee killed in trench cave-in

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was in a 21 ft deep trench, installing the base section of a manhole . A stub was to be placed at the base of the manhole to allow for future expansi on. The soil was classified as soft sand and gravel. A 6 ft wide trench box was provided but not used because the expansion stubs being installed ranged in widt h from 6 to 8 ft. Employee #1 was outside the trench box shoveling sand to clear the way for the expansion stub when the trench wall caved in on him, killing hi m.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 50 M

    Nature of injury
    2
    Part of body
    28
    Event type
    2
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    8
    Hazardous substance
    8880
    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.