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 #14445498

AMPUTATED,HARD HAT,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,EAR,TRENCH,SHORING,SLOPING,BURIED,CAVE-IN

Event
AMPUTATED,HARD HAT,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,EAR,TRENCH,SHORING,SLOPING,BURIED,CAVE-IN
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14445498
Report ID
552700

Event description

Employee's ear amputated in trench cave-in

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was preparing a trench of unspecified length for a sewer line when t he wall on Employee #1's left side collapsed, burying him. Employee #1 was weari ng wire-rimmed glasses that, according to a surgeon, completely amputated his le ft ear. An independent backhoe operator dug out Employee #1, saving his life. Th e trench was between 5 ft 6 in. and 7 ft deep, and 7 ft wide at the top narrowin g to 3 ft wide at the bottom. It was neither shored nor sloped, as required by t able P-1 of Standard 1926.652 (b). Employee #1 was not wearing a hard hat

Victim

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 65 M

    Nature of injury
    1
    Part of body
    6
    Event type
    1
    Source
    42
    Occupation code
    587
    Human factor
    17
    Environmental factor
    13
    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.