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 #14455554

WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,SLOPING,BURIED,CAVE-IN

Event
WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,SLOPING,BURIED,CAVE-IN
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14455554
Report ID
854910

Event description

Employee seriously injured in trench cave-in

Investigation abstract

At 10:00 a.m. on June 18, 1984, Employee #1, of the Probst Construction Company, t 4 ft wide. In the center of the paved street it was about 8 ft wide, and at th e edge of the parking strip on the other side of the street it was again about 4 ft wide. Causal factors for this accident include the lack of shoring, sloping, or bracing to prevent a cave-in. was helping the company owner install a line from a house to the city sewer sys tem. An approximately 7 ft deep trench had been dug, starting at the house and r unning across a paved street. Employee #1 was in the trench checking the level o f the sewer line when a wall caved in, covering him with dirt. He sustained seri ous injuries and was hospitalized. According to the company owner, the trench wa s about 5 ft to 6 ft deep and approximately 6 ft to 7 ft wide. At the point wher e it began in the house's yard, the trench was 29 in. wide and 32 in. deep. In t he lawn by the dirt parking strip at the side of the street, the trench was abou

Victim

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 21 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    2
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    585
    Human factor
    1
    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.