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 #14550081

MAINTENANCE,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,EARTHMOVING EQUIP,STARTED IN GEAR,TRENCH DIGGER,UNMANNED,RUN OVER

Event
MAINTENANCE,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,EARTHMOVING EQUIP,STARTED IN GEAR,TRENCH DIGGER,UNMANNED,RUN OVER
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14550081
Report ID
454712

Event description

Employee killed when run over by trencher

Investigation abstract

Employee #1, a lead mechanic, was performing routine maintenance work on a Ditch Witch trencher, Model 6510 DD, serial #655619. He was sitting cross-legged on t he floor, immediately behind the machine's right front wheel. He could not reach the oil plug so he asked an operator to start the trencher and turn the wheels to give him easier access to it. When the engine started, the trencher rolled ba ckward over Employee # 1, killing him. Employee #1 had evidently had moved the " creep" gear lever into reverse, either on purpose or by accident.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 39 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    5
    Event type
    1
    Source
    26
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    10
    Environmental factor
    8
    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.