NIOSH Warns of Danger of Trench Cave-Ins

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Description:
  NIOSH warns that workers may be risking their lives when working in trenches or near potentially unstable ground. At least six workers have died this year in cave ins and an average of 60 workers die in these situations every year. In most cases these deaths could have been prevented if existing safety standards had been met. The deaths of six workers involved in cave ins during construction work were described. These included: a 35 year old man building a manhole in a 10 foot deep sewer trench without the safety of a steel trench box; a 68 year old man buried when the unshored walls of a 16 foot by 4 foot ditch collapsed; a 62 year old man buried when a 40 foot long section of a dirt embankment collapsed; a 51 year old foreman asphyxiated when the unfortified walls of a ditch caved in; a 34 year old man killed when two concrete slabs and 6 feet of dirt buried him while he was repairing a sewer line; and a 29 year old man who was standing on the edge of a 7 foot deep trench when it gave way. Precautions which should be taken when working with trenches include using a shield or trench box system, shoring sides of excavations, sloping the sides of excavations, or securing sides by equivalent means such as bracing. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Construction Industry Occupational Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Safety Management
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-prevention Construction-industry Construction-workers Risk-factors Safety-measures
• Series:
  NIOSH Numbered Publications
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHPUB93110
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  District of Columbia ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OD - Office of the Director
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00215694
• Citation:
  Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, DHHS (NIOSH) Publication No. 93-110, 1993 May; :1-2
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1993
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:07a8331bdd13d2a7bb9cdf687fb99b2c085f7729f2a03bc800035ed8e134388f069bc269069b785ebcbdba52d8653b86e93b32750c5cfddc8d56677f61b55f14
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/209644/cdc_209644_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 67.36 KB ]