OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #690305
WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,UNSTABLE SOIL,SLOPING,CAVE-IN
Event description
One employee killed, coworker injured in trench cave-in
Investigation abstract
At approximately 1:45 p.m. on December 11, 1985, Employees #1 and #2, brothers, were connecting water and sewer lines in a 9 ft deep by 3 ft wide trench that th eir father had excavated. Because the surface was frozen, the first 1 1/2 ft of soil remained intact while the unfrozen soil beneath collapsed. Both employees w ere pinned against the east wall by a chunk of soil estimated to weigh several h undred pounds. Employee #1 was killed. Employee #2 was hospitalized.
Victims (2)
-
#1 Fatality Age 30 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 28
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 585
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 18
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 31 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 21
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 585
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 18
- 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.