This happened just three doors up from my house here in Arlington. There were dozens of emergency vehicles with flashing lights all over the neighborhood for about 5 hours. Creepy.
Short story is that a worker was hand digging a trench in the front yard of a home renovation project, possibly looking for the water supply pipe. Electricians were on the site, so maybe it had something to do with an electric cable instead. We’ve had rain the last couple days, so the ground was soft. According to the tv news, the trench was 4 to 6 feet deep. Sounds like there was no bracing in the trench. It collapsed, and the worker died. It took a couple hours for the fire department to get him out. But it was too late.
Years ago, when I was young and clueless, I did the exact same thing. Dug a trench down about 5 feet with a pick and shovel and no bracing, looking for a water pipe. It worked out OK for me, but I’ll never do that again.
I’m a homeowner, and don’t know the OSHA rules, but how deep does a hole have to be before you are supposed to use bracing?
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ARLINGTON COUNTY
Worker Dies in Digging Accident
A construction worker digging a hole near a house was killed yesterday in Arlington County when a pile of dirt fell onto him, authorities said.
Fire officials were called to the 800 block of North Greenbrier Street at 2:46 p.m. The worker’s body had not been recovered as of 4:30 p.m., a department spokeswoman said.
The worker was digging with picks and shovels to reach a waterline, but it was unclear what caused the dirt to fall into the hole, the fire spokeswoman said. The worker’s name was being withheld until his family could be notified, a police spokeswoman said.
Replies
Sucks....
That used to be my home area.
10 to 1 it was Hispanic day labor.....
>>how deep does a hole have to be before you are supposed to use bracing?
Approximately 5 feet. But it is more complicated than that. The attached is a North Carolina publication but provides universally good information.
http://www.nclabor.com/osha/etta/indguide/ig14.pdf
Wow. Almost 40 pages to answer that simple question. Thanks.
It varies depending on the soil stability, but generally, I have the trench either shored or stepped back after the gets chest high, (4-feet).
I'm hyper sensitive about it: When I was a young buck, I was in a 12 to 14-ft deep trench grading for a 30-inch storm drain line we were installing. I heard/saw the wall caving in, and dove head first into the drain pipe we had just installed, and got my body into it to about mid thigh before the dirt buried what was outside. It took 7-hours for them to get me out, and my right knee has been tweaked since.
The two guys with me were at the other end of the collapse, and got buried chest deep. One of them almost suffocated before they could get enough dirt off his diaphragm to let him breath.
That must have been a seriously scary experience. How did they even know that you were still alive? You must have spent 7 hours thinking that they were assuming that they were just recovering your body for a proper burial.
I was screaming my head off, and the crew forming the concrete at the drop inlet the pipe I was tied back into heard me. I was about 250 feet up the pipe from that access point. And, a pipe carries sound really well.
Once they knew I was in there, a paramedic crawled in to check me out, (blood pressure and pulse were both high). They ran a blower system in to be sure I had air. So I knew I would be okay, and was really more worried that they might get to digging me out too fast, and crush me with the excavator.
They brought in a couple of vacuum trucks, and sucked the dirt off. Took longer, but no way to crush me or the pipe I was in.
That was when I decided that I would rather be a surveyor. Changed, union halls from laborers to operators, because the operators had the surveyors.
Edited 10/29/2008 8:45 pm ET by Jigs-n-fixtures
We had a large concrete wall poured on our job site. We worked on forming that wall for a week, whalers and snap ties, and in the end it was about 12 feet below grade to the footing level. Anyway, over the weekend the dirt behind the wall gave way before we had a chance to pour and just a note, man-o-man does that falling soil have some force behind it. It moved the wall about six inches and all the snap ties, they were fiberglass rods, were broken off right at the plywood form hole, from about half way down all the way to the footing elevation. If even a portion of someones body had been down there at the time, they surely would have experienced a severe crush injury. Nothing to fool around with
WOW - that's some serious stuff - after that I wouldn't think you wouldn't want to go in anything deeper than knee-deep. 250' down a pipe - I probably would have "soiled" myself... No pun intended. Thanks for sharing that. Seriously.
I thought the OSHA rule was anything over 4' requires the trench sides to be sloped back at 45 degrees or a trench box. Obviously common sense says soil conditions come into play, but I'm just talking rules....
BTW - for everyone else here is a useful web site for raising safety awareness at your company. http://www.toolboxtopics.com/Construction/index.htm Unfortunately, I don't see anything real good on excavations.
Last time I looked, the OSHA standard drawing was 5-ft, then step backs, or angle of repose.
I've gotten to the point where I am designing and bidding the jobs now, and I have a detail in the drawings that shows 4-ft, and the guys who bid my jobs know, I'll run them off the site if I catch them trying to cheat it. It's clearly stated in the documents, and I enforce it.
Actually the 250-foot into storm drain pipe isn't too bad. It's roughly horizontal, at about 2% grade, and you can usually see light at the end.
We did have a claustrophobic laborer go nuts while he was mortaring the interior joints on concrete pipe that wasn't gasketed. His light went out, and he tried to turn around and got stuck. Poor guy lost his english, and was in there screaming and howling in Spanish. I had to crawl in and rope his feet, and then drag him backwards out of the pipe. Which was really hard to do, since he thought I was a monster coming to eat him, and was throwing trowels and fighting me. They drug tested him, and he was running on meth. That was as scared as I have been in a pipe.
When I was doing big water lines, the manways were every 1500-feet, and since water lines don't follow a straight grade, you couldn't see light at the end. They still weren't bad as long as your flash lights held up.
Scanned quickly through my OSHA book 29 part1926and through the pocket guide, i didn't find an exact answer. I found charts galore and they all depend on soil type for sloping the excavation, but did find, and i forgot about this, that there must be an exit (ladder,stairwy or ramp) no more than 25 feet of lateral travel for persons to exit. I worked at Merck Chemical Co a few years back and there rules were over three feet needed shoring, ladder for exit, safety harness with a rope tied to it and somebody holding the other end while you worked. I think their reasons for the latter was in case of poisonous gases they could pull you up without going in the hole. I know it was for our safety but major PITA.
It's hard to tell what's behind the soil in a trench. So no matter how stable it looks, it's always a good idea to dig wider to begin with and then step down on both sides.
That method helps to support the sides and also minimizes the amount of extra soil removed.
had a plumbing outfit doing work on one of my jobs. the nicest guy on the crew was a new dad. found out later that week he died in a trench cave in on another job. I'll never forget that. so sad to sacrafice safety for profits or deadlines or at the very least ignorance.
"it aint the work I mind,
It's the feeling of falling further behind."
Bozini Latini
http://www.ingrainedwoodworking.com
the nicest guy on the crew was a new dad. found out later that week he died in a trench cave in
Back in the mid-seventies I was building vacation homes in the Poconos when I met a very nice guy from Colorado who was a machine operator for one of the developers there.
We'd often visit in that developer's office in the morning, both of us waiting for our next assignment, hanging out near the coffee pot.
The office was in a lodge with a stone fireplace, set in the midst of some big firs, a great hang out for anyone in the trades who had business there.
Our conversations were mostly about places in the Colorado Rockies, a topic which brought out our mutual love and respect for that grand environment. It's humbling to be in such places so our recollections kept us in a similar state of mind most of the time.
One day he mentioned that he had a feeling that he'd be going home soon. I asked if he'd heard something about how things were going with sales there in the development. He replied that it wasn't something he'd heard, just a feeling he'd been having for a couple of days, about going home. He seemed very content about it so I didn't ask any more questions.
That was my last conversation with that good man. A day or two later I was in the office, waiting to finalize plans for my next job, when a call came in from the State Police. Someone had just found him dead, crushed in a roll over accident, under a machine he'd been unloading.
I was glad that he'd told me about his feeling. Knowing that he was prepared to go home made the loss of his friendship easier on me.
God works in wonderful ways, when we take a few minutes to go quietly inside and listen.
Edited 10/30/2008 7:50 pm by Hudson Valley Carpenter
oddly enoughhaving posted in this thread .. today I was framing a garage roof while the crane operator was helping the post and beam crew set these assemblies on the front porch of the main house. the operator had to fly things over the garage to get it to it's final location. the crane operator was in training with another guy "watching" him. no one has been impressed with either of these guys over the course of the week. well, if my coworker hadn't told be to duck today, I might be drooling in some head injury trauma unit tonight. the guy swung the assembly too low and missed my head only cause I ducked. close one."it aint the work I mind,
It's the feeling of falling further behind."Bozini Latinihttp://www.ingrainedwoodworking.com
I've become convinced, after many years of listening to and following my intuition, that God looks out for all of His creation in many small ways, all the time.
Like your near miss yesterday, happening shortly after getting involved in this topic. Just the right sensitivity awakened in you to make you more alert and prepared to move quickly, out of harm's way. To me, that's Grace.
not to mention my coworker yelling "duck". I too feel that I'm always being cared for in little ways. I totally agree."it aint the work I mind,
It's the feeling of falling further behind."Bozini Latinihttp://www.ingrainedwoodworking.com
Laborer here was killed last month from a cave in. He wasn't completely buried as I understand it but a large rock hit him in the chest and crushed his ribs. By the time they could remove him from the ditch it was too late.
I used to work as a super for the company he was employed by.
On the other side of things here is a pic of an OSHA approved excavation, 30' high darn near sheer walled excavation but because of soil type and " Debris Netting" we were able to do it.
OSHA consultant suggested we do it this way.
By the time we poured the walls there was less than 30" between the forms and the wall of the excavation.
Nice lookin' form job. You run a very tight ship.
Thank you, I try. I also get to decide which pics you get to see. ;-)
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
I also get to decide which pics you get to see.
And it goes without saying that there have been a lot of tight ships which have sunk.
Around here they make us put plastic caps on ANY Exposed Re-bar ends!
That photo would cost you at least $1,500. in my Harbor!
Busted!!
Here as well.
In fact that picture was taken prior to the caps being placed. The job ended up using a couple of 55 gal drums full of the safety caps.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
I will sleep better tonight knowing that!