OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14394217
WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,UNSTABLE SOIL,BURIED,CAVE-IN
Event description
Employee killed in trench cave-in
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 entered an open trench that had been dug the day before to give dire ctions to the trackhoe operator. The trench, which was on the down slope of a wa ste treatment levee, was 10 to 12 ft deep, 40 in. wide at the bottom, and 12 to 16 ft wide at the top. The soil was a sandy silt tan gray compacted (93+ compact ion soil). An 8-in.-diameter sewer line was being laid in the trench between a l ift station and a chlorinating unit that were 290 ft apart. While Employee #1 wa s in the trench, the south wall caved in, trapping him under approximately 6 to 8 ft of soil. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 49 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 4
- 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.