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 #608315

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

Event
WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,SLOPING,BURIED,CAVE-IN
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
608315
Report ID
418100

Event description

Employees injured in trench cave-in

Investigation abstract

At approximately 7:30 a.m. on September 23, 1987, Employees #1 and #2 were prepa ring to start work in a trench that was 16 ft deep by 5 ft wide at the bottom an d 15 ft wide at the top. The walls were almost vertical and not shored. The nort h wall caved in, knocking both employees against the south bank and burying them . Employees #1 and #2 were taken to the hospital. Employee #1 was released and r eturned to work. Employee #2 was hospitalized for three days for observation.

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 44 M

    Nature of injury
    3
    Part of body
    16
    Event type
    1
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    869
    Human factor
    20
    Environmental factor
    13
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Hospitalized Age 22 M

    Nature of injury
    3
    Part of body
    16
    Event type
    1
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    869
    Human factor
    20
    Environmental factor
    13
    Task assigned
    2

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.