OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14512099
BAY MAINTENANCE COMPANY, INC.
ROUND ROCK, TX·
Event description
Employee killed when trench wall caves in
Investigation abstract
At approximately 1:50 p.m. on July 10, 1987, Employee #1, age 18, and a coworker were laying 18 in. PVC pipe in a 14 ft deep by 72 ft long trench. It was 8 ft w ide at the top , with a 3 ft 9 in. box cut and a 1 1/2 to 2 ft ledge, and 2 ft w ide to the bottom. The walls were vertical and not shored. When the east wall st arted to cave in, the coworker ran out of the south end near an Hitachi backhoe. Employee #1 ran toward the north end, but was buried to his waist with dirt. Co workers tried to dig him out using the backhoe, but the wall caved in again and completely buried him. Employee #1 was killed. No exit ladder or steps had been provided.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 18 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 13
- Hazardous substance
- 8880
- 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.