OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14497192
ASPHYXIATED,COLLAPSE,TRENCH,SHORING,CAVE-IN
Event description
TRENCH CAVE IN KILL'S EMPLOYEE
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 was working as a laborer and was installing sewer pipe in a trench 7 -8 ft deep. At 11:00 a.m. the trench had grown to 12 to13 ft deep and 34 inches wide. The soil bank was placed on both sides adjacent to the trench because of a narrow 25 ft easement. The walls of the trench were vertical and consisted of r ed clay with some small rock. As Employee #1 worked at placing a joint of sewer pipe at the proper grade a large chunk of earth about 5 ft wide split off from t he east bank and fell over to the west side covering Employee #1, killing him. I t took about 45 minutes to remove the dirt down to 12 ft so the body could be re moved. No shoring, angling or equivalent method of protection was provided.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 33 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 11
- Environmental factor
- 6
- 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.