OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #704189
FRACTURE,PINNED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,TRENCH,SHORING,UNSTABLE SOIL,ARM,SLOPING,CAVE-IN
Event description
Employee injured in trench cave-in
Investigation abstract
On October 24, 1985, Employee #1, a laborer who had work experience in the plumb s raining and the trench had underground water seepage so after lunch, Employee #1 and a subcontractor went back into the trench to reshore it. Soon after they entered, the side walls of the trench caved in, trapping Employee #1 under 3 ft of dirt at the bottom of the trench. His right forearm was broken in two places and his left hand and ribs were bruised. He was extricated by the fire departmen t rescue squad and hospitalized for seven days at GBMC. The entire work area had been backfilled; rocks, concrete pieces, and metal objects were observed in the soil whcih cosisted of sand, small to large rocks, mica, and various soils. Hea vy vehicles, approximately 30,000 lb when empty, had been driving in the vicinit y of the trench prior to the accident. ing trade, was on his second day on the job. He was a member of a crew that was using a backhoe to dig a 9 ft deep, 10 ft long trench, that narrowed in width fr om 5 to 2 ft. Shoring had been placed in the trench that morning. The shoring ma terial consisted of four sheets of 4 ft by 8 ft plywood 3/4 in. thick, 2 in. by 8 in. wooden boards, and six screw jacks. Employee #1 was helping to saw a 6 in. diameter plastic sewage pipe that was located at the bottom of the trench, cutt ing it in two places to remove a 5 ft section. The employees were going to conne ct into an existing sewage pipe and then extend it alongside the building. It wa
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 53 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 17
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 565
- Human factor
- 14
- 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.