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 #672907

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

Event
SUFFOCATED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,SLOPING,CAVE-IN
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
672907
Report ID
751910

Event description

Employee suffocates in trench cave-in

Investigation abstract

At approximately 10:00 a.m. on June 22, 1989, Employee #1 was working in a 12 to 15 ft deep excavation that was open so a septic tank could be installed. The no rth, south, and east walls had some slope; the west wall, however, was vertical and had no shoring or sheeting. As work progressed, the west wall caved in and b uried Employee #1. A rescue crew removed Employee #1 from the excavation and tra nsported him to the hospital where he died at about 1:15 p.m.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 21 M

    Nature of injury
    2
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    2
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    599
    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.