OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14543185
WORK RULES,SHORING,CAVE-IN,FRACTURE,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,BACK,SLOPING,BURIED
Event description
One employee killed, one injured in trench cave-in
Investigation abstract
Employees #1 and #2 were in a 9 ft deep by 30 in. wide trench, installing 8 in. clay pipe for a sewer line in a subdivision. The owner of the company was operat ing the backhoe. The trench caved in from the west side and both workers were tr apped. Employee #1 was buried up to his chest and it took local fire departments 5 hours to free him. He was killed. Employee #2 was quickly freed and was hospi talized with a cracked vertebra in his lower back. The trench was neither sloped nor shored; the soil was loose with scattered rocks.
Victims (3)
-
#1 Fatality Age 30 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 5
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 4
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 36 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 3
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 4
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#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.