https://www.ky3.com/2022/12/12/body-recovered-after-trench-collapses-workers/
Sad day when someone doesn’t come home from work….
That's some bad looking stuff by the trench. Sad day indeed.
A sad day in Buffalo Grove IL yesterday. A 27 year old man died in a trench collapse. I just watched the WGN Chicago News Report. So sad and so preventable.
I will stop and say my piece 100% of the time when I see people in harm's way. So preventable indeed.
Seems to be enough news coverage when ever it happens. I'm just wondering why it keeps happening.
People move up through this trade and that guy in the ditch is the bottom of the ladder and maybe just started with the company. They don't know any better, they don't have regular safety programs at small companies, and they don't have a guy looking out for them.(the experienced operator) You'll notice it's rarely a large outfit that has these accidents. You'll see big outfits get violations.
Slipform shoring is too common anymore, rentable, NOT expensive and still get laborers killed doing shoddy, can get by without, work. Is absolutely NO reason this should still be occurring.
My question is why aren’t some people put in jail when that happens?
Correct me if I'm wrong, and not that it's any excuse, but isn't shoring only required when you get over 5' in depth? That's just a mini there, people can and do get killed in ditches less than 5' deep. Tragic, but sometimes **** happens. Like I said, not an excuse.
It's 4 ft . Yeah if you have your head down in a 3 ft ditch and things go wrong you're in trouble. Being a competent person isn't just about shoring, it's knowing about trench stability. You dig enough and you realize when you're next to an existing trench line, and that bank is just going to loaf off into your ditch if you turn your back on it.
Previously disturbed soils next to a new or IN a new excavation changes all the rules. Either Bench it back or shore up.
Prosecution has to prove some sort of intent. I seriously doubt anyone on that crew or company had any intent that day kill someone. That mini can dig deeper than 4-5'. IMO it's a lack of training and there is no excuse for the lack of training - period. The majority of the fatalities could've been prevented with a competent person actually being competent and not letting anyone in the excavation. If the project can't afford to pay for proper shoring or benching then no one needs to be part of it. If you're too ignorant to price in proper shoring or benching for the job, you don't need to be in the business. There are no excuses.
The charge is "Depraved Indifference" and the explanation of it can be found at this link: https://lawyer.zone/depraved-indifference/ Everyone in the industry will acknowledge that someone was in charge of that job and responsible for the safety of those working in those trenches. A second degree murder charge I think would be warranted for the owners of the company and the person running the job site.
OSHA and MSA should be on this like stink.
Still be hard to get a 2nd degree murder conviction in most courtrooms with a jury trial.
If it has been any amount of time, it takes an experienced eye to spot these things. They don't have a signpost or locate tape. My point is, the competent person needs to have more than a card, they need the experience to see what is going on. That can be some good training too.
I don't think it would be that hard to get a conviction of at least negligent homicide. Both charges are as a result of incompetence. Someone is in the business of digging ditches. That would usually indicate a professional ditch digger was in charge. Part of that profession is some kind of training, experience and success at ditch digging. Here is a phrase from the link to consider: "The law considers that the person’s indifference or lack of concern for the risk to the life of another is so grave that the actions should be considered as a crime as if the person had malicious intent."
There's no way anyone goes up on a murder charge for something like this. Manslaughter might be the most any prosecutor would try for, and it would get plead down. Be surprising if it even went that far, and likely only if someone with money or connections, on the side of the injured party pushed things. I really don't even see felony charges, maybe misdemeanor. Doesn't make it any less sad, and I'm on my guys all the time. We are going to find the right or safe way to get the job done, or we aren't doing the job. I don't care what we get done in a day, just that we all get to go home at the end of the day.
That wasn't the point I was trying to make. Like I said, not trying to excuse what happened, just point out none of us here have any idea the exact conditions that led to the collapse, and it's entirely plausible that they may have only been working in a 4' hole, and this was a freak tragedy. Of course, if they were in a 5', 10', whatever deep hole without shoring and this happened, then hammer down on the guy in charge. But, we don't know and might never know so to ramble about this guy needing to go to jail is a bit speculative IMO.
Another thing to consider isn't always the depth but the width of a trench. A 5' wide trench the same depth as one 2' wide is infinitely safer, also depends what you're doing in there, standing it in is far different from having to crouch down to do something. I nearly walked away from an excavation this summer 12' down and no room to cut back banks, told them it was going to be extra for a trench box or I wasn't doing the job, and they agreed to pay it. I will admit I do go in trenches deeper then 5' without cut backs, virtually everyone, if not everyone does. For basements no one benches even 7'-8' cuts provided it's decent soil unless it's a commercial job. A lot of it is experience and knowing the soil. But you also don't expect someone to go in a trench you dig unless you'll go in it yourself. There was a worker here killed a few years ago, the excavator and home builder were fined in the 6 digit area if I remember right.
Here's the official line from OSHA. https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/national/07142022 They says 22 people dead in the first six months of 2022.
^ statistics like that have set the shoring requirements at 4'. We don't mess around with that. it gets shored or I take off whatever I need to get that off the top of the sides and ends. The 20 ton tilt trailer we have came from TomCat's estate. He watched his wife ride the bank in when he was digging between a house and a fence. She was shooting grade from the edge of the dig with a grade rod. Technically she was not in the hole, but some shoring would have saved her life. It is not just some strangers out there having a bad day, it's somebody's son or daughter or in his case, his wife. He was never the same. I can't imagine being in the excavator and watch the dirt push the life out of somebody.
If there was guards and handrails and protection in everything it would save a lot more lives too, but there is a certain risk involved just in stepping outside each day and you can only do a reasonable amount, unless people want everything in life to cost 10x as much because it takes so long to do anything. No one should be walking on the edge of a bank unless there is a need to do so, and if they are need to be aware of the potential for it to cave in at any point. It's sad she died, but was either not paying attention or was not experienced. There is an alarming amount of people who walk around completely oblivious to what is going on around them and those are exactly the type who have no business being in a trench. Even if it's shored it is not 100% safe something can still happen. The 5' shoring requirement was made to take common sense out of the equation and for people who have zero experience from getting into trouble. Anyone who been around it long enough can tell minutes or hours before if and when a bank will cave in.
Yep I've heard the old timers say - "I've been going into trenches for 30 years with no problem" until the day they don't come back out. There are many, many different soil classifications, types and consistencies. You're pretty good if you can tell hours before a bank caves in. So if you have to be in the ditch for 30 mins and you know the ditch will cave in 2 hours you're good to go. Experience tells me that I've taken too many chances in my career doing stupid **** so my "winning" percentage is lower than it used to be, so I'll err on the side of caution and bench or shore it.
Tempting fate works a few times then fate steps up to bat, not gonna win that one. Have not died, yet, from getting away with stupid **** but know when to back away as that sixth sense sets hairs standing up on my neck. Some just ignore or grow insensitive to the warnings.
I live an hour south of that site. Ground zero for a storm sewer project. The sewer line made a turn in front of the house and continued down the street. Probably a 60 inch concrete pipe. End of driveway collapsed into the installed protective shoring. Many buildings in the general area have settled and some have been raised up or torn down. After digging down a couple foundation walls to seal cracks and considering the consequences I have a much different view of it now.
This happened back in 2019 when we were grading a Duluth Trading store in the general area. 7' trench and 2 dead. Lack of training, the language barrier and a company with no experience doing a job like this all contributed. No reason for 2 men to die for a drainage issue in someone's front yard. https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/...rkers-trapped-in-drainage-ditch-collapse.html
We just lost a ex co-worker at the Nuke, 58, lived Fulton MO. John started with the company after I had fully qualified as Operator as a Plant Helper, he worked up thru the testing and seniority advancement to work in Maintenance as a Mechanic/Machinist trainee then took a supervisory position there. He had bought some older scaffold the plant sold as was getting hard to deal with and a personal owner could utilize where was using it to hang Xmas lights. No one is positive, the ground is fairly level around his home, a slight depression or a mole run, the thought was he had it on plywood for the wheels, maybe forgot to lock one? but no one can validate for some reason yet the scaffold fell over with he on the upper platform 12' up. As normal No fall protection as homeowner, as scaffold fell John left the platform and hit his head they believe on a tree limb, broke his neck. Lessons learned? Bad chance of Luck? He was trained as most on here have been as to Fall Protection in the Work Place, bad choice of scaffold use not much different than stepping into a trench uncertain of soundness as have done it a hundred times prior. We all take that one slim chance it won't go south in a hurry and most come away unscathed, some do not finish the trip.