trench collapse

OSHA throws book at contractor for trenching death. I hear lame excuses for ignoring risk

cmonforton — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 16:11:26 +0000

OSHA throws book at contractor for trenching death. I hear lame excuses for ignoring risk

It is maddening to read yet again about a worker being killed in a trench cave-in. These deaths are completely preventable by using some pretty cheap equipment. The death of Donald “DJ” Meyer in December 2016 is especially tragic. The 33 year-old is survived by his son Ashten, 8. The youngster’s mother died unexpectedly two years ago.

I learned this week that OSHA has thrown the book at Meyer’s employer. They issued citations against Arrow Plumbing for six willful and eight serious violations and proposed a $714,142 penalty.

Arrow Plumbing was responsible for making certain its excavation projects were safe. For DJ Meyer and his co-workers, they failed to do so. But the safety problems at this company are even worse. Four weeks after Meyer’s death, OSHA inspectors found employees at another Arrow Plumbing jobsite working in an unprotected trench. The hole was 8 to 13 feet deep, 43 feet long and accumulating water---a recipe for another disaster.

Aluminum trench box with ladder to enter and exit the excavated area.

I just don’t get it. Why don't some companies ensure trench protection equipment is used?

The equipment to shore up a trench is CHEAP. You can rent a small trench box for about $100 per day, or can purchase one for about $5,000. Some contractors instead use aluminum hydraulic shores. For a small job, they might need 3 or 4, at rental cost of $10 per shore, plus the fee for the pump bucket and tools. A contractor could buy their own shoring system with all the equipment needed for a few thousand dollars.

The National Utility Contractors Association’s (NUCA) teamed up with OSHA and other groups last week to sponsor a nationwide trench safety stand-down. Its purpose was to raise awareness of trenching hazards and emphasize the life-saving importance of trench protective systems.

In the first five months of 2017, 15 workers have been killed in trench cave-ins, according to OSHA. Nineteen more workers have been injured in trench incidents.

I spoke with Brian Drake in OSHA’s Kansas City regional office about trench safety. I told him how I continue to be baffled to read about trenching fatalities. He said he feels the same way. These deaths are so senseless.

Over the years, Drake and his OSHA colleagues have heard a variety of excuses from employers about why they didn’t use a trench box or shoring equipment. Some of the most common?

“We didn’t think we’d need it.”

“We didn’t think we’d be going that deep.”

“We thought it was just a quick job.”

Photo from OSHA safety poster (http://bit.ly/2sqeWyo)

Tangled within these excuses is probably something like this:

“By the time we install the trench protection we could be done with this job.”

It pains me to think about 8 year-old Ashten Meyer. He will probably learn some day how easy and cheap it would have been for his dad to have been protected in that trench.

cmonforton Fri, 06/30/2017 - 12:11

Not an “accident”: Gerald Thompson, 51 suffers fatal work-related injury in Lakeville, MN

cmonforton — Thu, 09 Jul 2015 16:07:04 +0000

Not an “accident”: Gerald Thompson, 51 suffers fatal work-related injury in Lakeville, MN

Gerald Lyle Thompson, 51, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Tuesday, June 30, 2015 while working in Lakeville, Minnesota for DSM Excavating.

KSTP reports:

His employer, DSM Excavating was hired by Ryland Homes for the excavation project. The trench in which Thompson was working caved in on him.

The Star-Tribune reports:

Thompson and his brother were “installing drain tile on the perimeter of a lot…when the trench collapsed ...”
The trench was 6 to 8 feet deep and Thompson was trapped at the bottom of it when the soil collapsed onto him.
The Dakota County Special Operations team recovered his body three hours later.

Twincities.com adds:

Thompson's brother, Dennis Thompson, and other fellow construction workers attempted to free him, but the trench kept collapsing.

Thompson’s obituary in the Star-Tribune notes:

“He served his country in the United States Army and Air Force during multiple Tours of Duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

DSM Excavating was previously cited for trenching violations by MN-OSHA. Following a July 2006 inspection, DSM received citations for two serious violations and paid a $770 penalty.

Each year, more than 50 workers in Minnesota are fatally injured on-the-job. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 69 work-related fatal injuries in Minnesota during 2013 (most recent available.) Nationwide, at least 4,545 workers suffered fatal traumatic injuries in 2013.

The AFL-CIO’s annual Death on the Job report notes:

Minnesota-OSHA has 44 inspectors to cover more than 145,700 workplaces.
The average penalty for a serious violation in Minnesota is $ 752. The average penalty for citations related to a work-related fatality occurring in Minnesota is $20,184.

MN-OSHA has until the end of December 2015 to issue any citations and penalties related to the incident that stole Gerald Thompson's life. It’s likely they’ll determine that his death was preventable. It was no “accident.”

cmonforton Thu, 07/09/2015 - 12:07

OSHA Saves Lives: Trench Collapse Edition

lborkowski — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:00:21 +0000

OSHA Saves Lives: Trench Collapse Edition

Those who work to prevent death, disease, and disasters often have a thankless task - if they do their jobs well, people rarely notice. But two OSHA inspectors recently saved workers' lives in a very visible way, and the agency wrote about it on their blog, (Work in Progress).

Trench collapses are an all-too-common occurrence, and workers who are inside trenches when they cave in are often killed -- essentially smothered to death with mud. This is why OSHA requires that trenches (or any construction excavation) deeper than five feet must be protected against collapse. As OSHA notes in its Construction Safety guide, protective systems include sloping the trench walls (with slope angles depending on soil type), installing supports to shore up the trench sides, and the use of trench boxes to prevent cave-ins.

All too often, though, employers ignore these safety steps. And in two recent instances, OSHA inspectors who saw unshored trenches were able to order the employees out of them shortly before they collapsed:

On March 8, Rick Burns was performing a worksite inspection on a trench being dug by Trimat Construction in Mercerville, Ohio, when he directed an employee to exit the trench believing collapse was imminent. Unfortunately, he was right. Within five minutes, it did collapse and could have buried the worker alive. The employee was working in a trench at a depth greater than 10 feet without cave-in protection. "The actions of the compliance officer likely saved this worker's life," said David Wilson, assistant area director in the Columbus area office.
Similarly, on April 20, Compliance Officer Eliseo Hernandez and Assistant Area Director Joseph Roesler from the Mobile, Ala., Area Office were traveling to an inspection near Auburn, Ala. Along the way they noticed an open excavation where employees were not protected from a cave-in. They stopped and immediately opened an inspection. The excavation was approximately 5 and 1/2 feet deep where two employees were working under an excavator bucket connecting a water line. Just after the employees were removed from the hazard at the request of the Compliance Officer, the wall of the excavation fissured and collapsed. No one was hurt, and the emphasis program on excavation and trenching demonstrated its value.

The blog post also includes striking photos from the sites and more information on excavation safety.

It's rare to get such an immediate demonstration of why safety actions are important, but this is a good reminder of what OSHA's fundamental mission is: saving workers' lives. And if employers want to argue that this kind of regulatory activity is bad for business, maybe they should stop providing so many situations that demonstrate why OSHA is necessary.

lborkowski Wed, 04/27/2011 - 04:00