105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #564054

TRENCH,PIPE,BURIED,CAVE-IN,SEWAGE

Event
TRENCH,PIPE,BURIED,CAVE-IN,SEWAGE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
564054
Report ID
627100

Event description

EMPLOYEE KILLED IN TRENCH CAVE-IN

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was lining sewage pipes in a trench that was approximately 20 feet d eep, 40 inches wide at the bottom, 8 feet wide at the top and 40 feet long. The soil and walls of the trench were unstable because the trench was opened and clo sed four times. In addition, a water main lying parallel with the trench broke, resulting in the already unstable walls of the trench to be weaker. The southwes t wall of the trench gave way, burying Employee #1 under 6 feet of dirt. Employe e #1 was recovered from the trench hours later and pronounced dead at the site.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 58 M

    Nature of injury
    2
    Part of body
    1
    Event type
    2
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    9
    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.