OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #608471
SEWER,ASPHYXIATED,COLLAPSE,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH
Event description
EMPLOYEE KILLED WHEN TRENCH COLLAPSES
Investigation abstract
At approximately 3:30 p.m. on January 16, 1989, Employee #1 was working in an 8 ft deep unshored, unsloped trench laying 6 in. PVC sanitary sewer line. Employee #1 was not wearing a hard hat and had no ladder, safety program, or training as to the specific hazards of cave-ins. The spoil, soil that has been removed from the trench, was not stored 2 ft away from edge. The soil was sandy loam with mu ltiple slick heads visible. When the multiple slick heads slid inward, the wall of the trench collapsed. Employee #1 was engulfed and asphyxiated.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 27 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 5
- Event type
- 6
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 865
- Human factor
- 18
- Environmental factor
- 13
- 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.