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 #801324

AMPUTATED,CABLE TV WORK,CAUGHT BY,TRENCH,TRENCH DIGGER,ARM,LEG

Event
AMPUTATED,CABLE TV WORK,CAUGHT BY,TRENCH,TRENCH DIGGER,ARM,LEG
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
801324
Report ID
454510

Event description

EMPLOYEE'S ARM AND LEG AMPUTED BY TRENCHER CHAIN

Investigation abstract

Three employees had set up a Case trencher (Model No. 30+4) with a 1.8-meter cha in to lay a cable television line. Since it was close to lunchtime, one employee sent the other two employees to lunch. The remaining employee was digging the t rench when the trencher became stuck about 0.6 meters deep into the hole. The em ployee got off the seat with the trencher still running to dislodge the chain. T he chain started running again, caught the employee, and pulled him into the cha in, amputating an arm and a leg. He was hospitalized for his injuries.

Victim

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 25 M

    Nature of injury
    1
    Part of body
    16
    Event type
    2
    Source
    26
    Occupation code
    533
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    2
    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.