104,543Records 70,659Employers 84,666Hospitalizations 27,563Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-09-30
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14398929

DITCH,SUFFOCATED,WORK RULES,EQUIPMENT OPERATOR,CONSTRUCTION,UNSTABLE SOIL,BURIED,CAVE-IN,BACKHOE

Event
DITCH,SUFFOCATED,WORK RULES,EQUIPMENT OPERATOR,CONSTRUCTION,UNSTABLE SOIL,BURIED,CAVE-IN,BACKHOE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14398929
Report ID
626300

Event description

Backhoe operator killed when dam caves in

Investigation abstract

Employee #1, a backhoe operator, had cut a ditch in an earthen dam to drain it. After the ditch had been cut, Employee #1 and coworkers were standing on top of the dam to watch it drain when the dam failed. Employee #1 was covered with eart h and died of suffocation.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 31 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.