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 #14490916

CONCRETE FORM WORK,EXCAVATION,WORK RULES,EXPLOSION,CONSTRUCTION,NATURAL GAS,GAS LEAK,COMMUNICATION

Event
CONCRETE FORM WORK,EXCAVATION,WORK RULES,EXPLOSION,CONSTRUCTION,NATURAL GAS,GAS LEAK,COMMUNICATION
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14490916
Report ID
215800

Event description

Two employees injured in natural gas explosion

Investigation abstract

A building contractor hired an excavation contractor to dig the foundation for a dation. The dwelling exploded about an hour later, injuring Employees #1 and #2. It was later determined that the excavation contractor had ruptured a privately installed gas line that ran from the residence to the garage at the rear of the property. The cause of ignition is unknown. n addition to a single-family dwelling. The excavation contractor contacted the underground facilities protective organization prior to digging, and the utiliti es in front of the house were marked. The excavation contractor was digging the foundation with a backhoe when he encountered a pipe inside the existing foundat ion. When the pipe broke off, the excavation contractor did not smell gas and as sumed it was a dead piece of electrical conduit. The excavation work was complet e by approximately 12:40 p.m., when Employees #1 and #2 and a coworker, all empl oyed by the building contractor, arrived and began installing forms for the foun

Victims (3)

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 19 M

    Nature of injury
    7
    Part of body
    9
    Event type
    1
    Source
    20
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    14
    Environmental factor
    7
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 23 M

    Nature of injury
    7
    Part of body
    9
    Event type
    1
    Source
    20
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    14
    Environmental factor
    7
    Task assigned
    1
  3. #981 Degree 0 Age 0

    Nature of injury
    0
    Part of body
    0
    Event type
    0
    Source
    0
    Occupation code
    0
    Human factor
    0
    Environmental factor
    0
    Task assigned
    0

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.