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 #964585

EXCAVATION,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,BURIED,CAVE-IN,UNTRAINED,SPRAIN,ANKLE

Event
EXCAVATION,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,BURIED,CAVE-IN,UNTRAINED,SPRAIN,ANKLE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
964585
Report ID
352420

Event description

Employee sprains ankle in excavation collapse

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 and a coworker were laying a 6 in. lateral sewer line and setting th d. It had a 20 in. wide bench on the north side, 1 1/2 ft below the top, and a 2 4 ft wide bench that narrowed to 20 to 24 in. on the south side, 2 ft below the top. The employer had no specific safety rules for excavations or trenches, and none of the employees was familiar with the applicable safety standards. e vent pipe in an excavation located at the east side of a townhouse foundation. Employee #1 was at the east end of the excavation facing the north wall and the coworker was next to the north wall near the west end of the excavation when a portion of the south and east walls collapsed. The coworker managed to get out o f the excavation, but Employee #1 was buried to his waist. He was dug out by thr ee coworkers. His only injury was a sprained ankle. The excavation was approxima tely 13 ft long; it was 10 ft 7 in. wide at the west end; 5 ft 8 in. wide at the east end; and 8 ft deep at the west end increasing to 10 ft deep at the east en

Victim

  1. #1 Non-hospitalized injury Age 27 M

    Nature of injury
    20
    Part of body
    11
    Event type
    2
    Source
    12
    Occupation code
    557
    Human factor
    17
    Environmental factor
    18
    Task assigned
    2

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.