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 #788182

HEAD,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,PLANK,FALL,FALL PROTECTION,LOST BALANCE,MANHOLE,UNSTABLE POSITION

Event
HEAD,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,PLANK,FALL,FALL PROTECTION,LOST BALANCE,MANHOLE,UNSTABLE POSITION
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
788182
Report ID
1054112

Event description

Employee dies of head injuries sustained in fall

Investigation abstract

Employee #1, a 56-year-old plumber, was changing flange bolts on a pipe inside a n 18 ft deep by 5 ft diameter manhole while standing on a 2 in. by 7 in. manhole board placed across the manhole at an elevation of approximately 10 ft above th e bottom. Employee #1 apparently lost his footing and fell, striking his head on a metal baffle that was approximately 5 ft above the bottom and extruding from the manhole wall. He continued to fall to the bottom of the manhole, which conta ined approximately 6 in. of water. He was found lying face down in the water by a coworker 1 to 2 hours later. Employee #1 died of head injuries.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 56 M

    Nature of injury
    6
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    5
    Source
    28
    Occupation code
    585
    Human factor
    1
    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.