OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #607069
FRACTURE,ASPHYXIATED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,WELDING,SHORING,UNSTABLE SOIL,SLOPING,CAVE-IN
Event description
Welder killed in trench cave-in
Investigation abstract
At approximately 3:00 p.m. on October 4, 1987, Employee #1 and a coworker, both olice report, and witnesses. welders, were welding two sections of 42 inch steel casing together in a 35 feet long, 12 to 28 feet wide and 15 feet deep trench running perpendicular to the r oad. It was vertical at both ends, and the sides were inadequately sloped in sof t and unstable soil that had been previously disturbed. The employees apparently did not realize how hazardous the trench was even after the west wall had caved in on September 25, 1987. The road face of the trench (boring pit) caved in. Em ployee #1 sustained multiple fractures and died of asphyxia. The weather was cle ar and warm. This information was obtained from the medical examiner's report, p
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 23 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- 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.