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 #14523666

HEAD,TRENCH,CRUSHED,CAVE-IN,BACKHOE

Event
HEAD,TRENCH,CRUSHED,CAVE-IN,BACKHOE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14523666
Report ID
522300

Event description

EMPLOYEE KILLED IN TRENCH CAVE-IN

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was working in a 10 feet deep unprotected trench. The side wall coll apsed, covering Employee #1. The backhoe operator, while attempting to remove th e top layer of dirt during the rescue, struck Employee #1 with the backhoe bucke t. The official cause of death was a head injury. The trench was approximately 1 01 feet in length, 4 feet in width, and 10 feet in depth. There were no safeguar ds provided to protect the employees working in the trench. In addition, when th e trench had been excavated to approximately 20 feet in length, a sand vein or p ocket was noted along the lower section of the side walls and at the bottom of t he trench. The upper portions of the side walls were clay.

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 43 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    1
    Source
    27
    Occupation code
    869
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    8
    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.