OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14527808
CPR,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,UNSTABLE SOIL,BURIED,CAVE-IN
Event description
Employee killed by trench cave-in
Investigation abstract
An excavation 8 feet wide (at bottom) by 14 feet by 90 to 100 feet long had been kers within 10 to 15 minutes and was taken by ambulance to the local hospital. H e stopped breathing 3 to 4 minutes after arrival. Resuscitation efforts failed a nd Employee #1 died. dug for an 8 inch diameter sewage line by a Caterpillar 215 excavator. The tren ch walls were sloped 7:1. Spoils had been laid on both sides near the edge of th e excavation/trench, but the pile was larger on the east side. Employees #1 and #2 had laid the fourth 20 foot long section of PVC pipe and were about to level it to grade when a portion of the east wall collapsed, causing Employee #1 to fa ll into a sitting position with his back against the ladder at the west wall. Em ployee #2 felt dirt hit him from behind and was knocked clear. A second collapse of the east wall covered Employee #1 to mid-chest. He was dug out by fellow wor
Victims (2)
-
#1 Fatality Age 21 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 1
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 17
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 24 M
- Nature of injury
- 3
- Part of body
- 16
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 17
- 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.