OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14437529
WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,VIBRATIONS,STRUCK BY,UNSTABLE SOIL,CAVE-IN,FALLING OBJECT,BACKHOE
Event description
Three injured when struck by gutter during trench cave-in
Investigation abstract
Employees #1 through #3 were working in a 4 ft deep trench that ran along the ed sand and clay, and the bottom 2 ft was a mixture of sand and approximately 6 to 8 in. diameter drain rock. The soil was wet from recent rains. ge of a roadway. The north edge of the trench abutted a concrete gutter. The sou th edge was covered by the roadway blacktop and the spoil pile was stacked on th e blacktop at the edge of the trench wall. Traffic was moving on the blacktop ab out 10 ft from the trench. A backhoe was working on the trench approximately 40 to 50 ft to the east when it evidently hit the concrete gutter, resulting in a c hain reaction that caused the full length of the gutter to fall into the trench. All three employees were struck by the gutter and falling soil, but only Employ ee #1 required hospitalization. The top 2 ft of the trench wall was composed of
Victims (3)
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 54 M
- Nature of injury
- 3
- Part of body
- 14
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 50 M
- Nature of injury
- 3
- Part of body
- 16
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#3 Non-hospitalized injury Age 53 M
- Nature of injury
- 3
- Part of body
- 16
- 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.