OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14527857
ASPHYXIATED,TELECOM WORK,TRENCH,VIBRATIONS,SHORING,CAVE-IN
Event description
EMPLOYEE ASPHYXIATED IN TRENCH CAVE IN
Investigation abstract
Two employees were laying 6.1-meter-long lengths of 102-millimeter-diameter PVC een covered for 1 hour and 20 minutes, died of asphyxiation. The second employee sustained minor injuries. pipe in a trench that was 0.6 meters wide and 3.0 meters deep. The employees had not shored or sloped the trench. The pipe was to serve as conduit for communica tions cable. At one point in the trench, the conduit came out a manhole, with co nnection points that were 4.4 meters below ground. One employee was working 6.1 meters south of the manhole, and the second employee was 9.1 meters south of man hole. Vibrations from street traffic and the load from 34.6 metric tons of soil caused the west wall of trench to collapse, completely burying the first employe e and burying the second employee up to his chest. The first employee, who had b
Victims (2)
-
#1 Fatality Age 41 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 17
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 29 M
- Nature of injury
- 3
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 2
- 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.