OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14257018
EVANS ELLER & ASSOCIATES INC
HIGH POINT, NC—
Event description
Employee killed in trench cave-in
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 and two coworkers were engaged in a trenching operation at a city wa long section of soil caved in from under the pavement on the southern wall, bur ying him. About 15 minutes later, rescuers uncovered his head and it was determi ned that he was dead. The trench was estimated to have been about 14 ft deep at the point where the cave-in occurred. ter filtration plant. They were preparing to connect a 4 in. cast iron drain pip e from a water vault under construction to an already-installed 6 in. drain line . The approximately 40 ft long trench was 27 to 32 in. wide and had been dug wit h an east-to-west orientation. Its western end extended about 12 ft into an pave d asphalt plant road, and pavement and curbing had been removed with a jackhamme r before the trench was dug. The job superintendent was operating the backhoe wh en its bucket struck and broke the 6 in. drain line. Employee #1 entered the tre nch and was shoveling dirt from around the pipe when a 2 to 3 ft thick and 13 ft
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 39 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 869
- Human factor
- 17
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Hazardous substance
- 8880
- 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.