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 #14494579

EXCAVATION,WORK RULES,CAVE-IN,WELDER,CONSTRUCTION,WELDING,SLOPING,BURIED

Event
EXCAVATION,WORK RULES,CAVE-IN,WELDER,CONSTRUCTION,WELDING,SLOPING,BURIED
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14494579
Report ID
627700

Event description

Employee injured when 12 ft excavation collapsed

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 and his employer, both welders, were working in a 12-ft deep excavat ion. They were cutting a section out of an old, 36-in.-diameter water pipe so th at they could weld a connection to a new water pipe. One bank of the excavation collapsed. Employee #1 was buried to his shoulders and pinned between the soil a nd the water pipe. He sustained several broken ribs, a broken collarbone and oth er internal injuries. The employer had been partially covered and suffered sprai ns and bruises. The collapse resulted from inadequate sloping of the bank and fa ilure to take other protective measures.

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 45 M

    Nature of injury
    3
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    2
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    9
    Environmental factor
    4
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #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.