OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14400139
STERLING DITCHING SERVICE
MALONE, TX—
Event description
Company owner and employee killed in trench cave-in
Investigation abstract
Employees #1 and #2 were laying 10 in. pipe in a 12 1/2 to 13 ft deep by 22 ft l ong by 24 ft wide trench that was neither sloped nor shored. A large chunk of di rt fell from the middle of the west wall, pinning Employee #1 against the east w all. Employee #2, who had started out of the trench, went back in to help Employ ee #1 when the whole west side of the trench closed, burying and killing both em ployees. If Employee #2, the company owner and the only one on site with the emp loyees, had lived, he would have been cited. The general contractor had neither a representative nor any employees on site.
Victims (2)
-
#1 Fatality Age 52 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 4
- Environmental factor
- 4
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Fatality Age 16 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 4
- Environmental factor
- 4
- 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.