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Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #693341

ASPHYXIATED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,SLOPING,BURIED,CAVE-IN,CONTUSION,LEG

Event
ASPHYXIATED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,SLOPING,BURIED,CAVE-IN,CONTUSION,LEG
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
693341
Report ID
355116

Event description

One employee killed and one injured in trench cave-in

Investigation abstract

At approximately 3:45 p.m. on June 12, 1989, Employees #1 and #2 were laying a l ength of pipe in a trench that was approximately 9 ft deep, 18 ft long, and 30 i n. at the top. The walls were almost vertical and not shored. The pipe was lower ed into the trench. Employees #1 and #2 were positioning the pipe when the west wall caved in, covering Employee #1 completely and covering Employee #2 to his s houlders. Employee #1 died of asphyxiation and Employee #2 suffered a contusion to his lower right leg and was hospitalized.

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 29 M

    Nature of injury
    2
    Part of body
    5
    Event type
    2
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    14
    Environmental factor
    4
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Hospitalized Age 22 M

    Nature of injury
    3
    Part of body
    18
    Event type
    2
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    14
    Environmental factor
    4
    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.