OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14520514
CHARLES MAY EXCAVATING
DESOTO, IL—
Event description
Three employees injured when trench caves in twice
Investigation abstract
At approximately 12:45 p.m. on August 1, 1984, Employees #1 and #2 were laying a length of 10 inch sewer pipe in a 30 in. wide by 52 ft long 13 ft deep trench. The walls were vertical, unshored, and unbraced, and no trench box was in use. T he east wall collapsed, burying Employee #1 to his chest and Employee #2 to his waist. During rescue operations, the wall collapsed again, burying Employee #3 t o his chest and completely covering Employees #1 and #2. Employee #1 suffered nu merous bruises and swelling of the lower legs and feet and Employee #2 sustained injuries to his knees and upper legs; both were hospitalized. Employee #3 suffe red a shoulder injury and a broken collarbone.
Victims (3)
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 29 M
- Nature of injury
- 20
- Part of body
- 11
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Hospitalized Age 24 M
- Nature of injury
- 20
- Part of body
- 16
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#3 Non-hospitalized injury Age 24 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 21
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 12
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 6
- 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.