OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14511273
CHEST,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,CRUSHED,SHORING,UNSTABLE SOIL,BRACING,SLOPING,CAVE-IN
Event description
Employee killed in trench cave-in
Investigation abstract
Employee #1, age 18, and a coworker were in a 8 ft deep by 4 ft wide trench, mak ing connections to two existing pipes that had been installed about five months earlier. The coworker had left the trench to get some material when the north wa ll collapsed, pinning Employee #1 against the opposite wall. He suffered a crush ed chest, and a ruptured right lung, liver, and right adrenal gland. He was kill ed. The trench was dug in a backfilled area and was not sloped, shored, sheeted, or braced. A John Deere 410 backhoe had been used to dig the trench.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 18 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 5
- Event type
- 1
- 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.