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 #14446603

SUFFOCATED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,UNSTABLE SOIL,SLOPING,CAVE-IN

Event
SUFFOCATED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,UNSTABLE SOIL,SLOPING,CAVE-IN
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14446603
Report ID
453710

Event description

Employee killed in trench cave-in

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was fine-grading a 7 ft deep trench before installation of a 6 in. s ewer line. One wall of the trench, composed of nonhomogeneous clay soil, collaps ed on Employee #1. He died of suffocation. The trench was neither sloped nor sho red, and the spoil pile was not located 2 ft or more from the edge of the trench .

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 20 M

    Nature of injury
    2
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    2
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    585
    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.