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 #14498638

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

Event
INSTALLING,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,BURIED,CAVE-IN
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14498638
Report ID
626600

Event description

Employee killed in trench cave-in

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 and a coworker were installing an 18 in. diameter concrete storm sew er pipe in a trench that was 9 ft deep by 7 ft wide at the top and 30 in. wide a t the bottom. Attempts had been made to bench the sides of the trench above the 6 ft level. While the two employees were grading the area, the east wall of the trench collapsed, trapping Employee #1 underneath the dirt. He was killed. The c oworker was able to run away from the cave-in and escape injury.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 41 M

    Nature of injury
    2
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    2
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    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.