104,543Records 70,659Employers 84,666Hospitalizations 27,563Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-09-30
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14542294

SUFFOCATED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,BURIED,CAVE-IN

Event
SUFFOCATED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,BURIED,CAVE-IN
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14542294
Report ID
418100

Event description

One employee killed, one injured in trench cave-in

Investigation abstract

On May 17, 1984, Employees #1 and #2 and two coworkers were digging a trench nex t to a concrete wall. The 29 ft long by 2 ft wide by 13 ft deep trench was in an area of backfill and was shored only down to 7 1/2 ft. The unshored section of the trench caved in, burying Employees #1 and #2. Employee #1 died of suffocatio n.

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 32 M

    Nature of injury
    2
    Part of body
    5
    Event type
    13
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    14
    Environmental factor
    18
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 27 M

    Nature of injury
    3
    Part of body
    16
    Event type
    13
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    14
    Environmental factor
    18
    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.