Terrible tragedy here today but probably not uncommon and I hope they there will hell to pay for it.
Young Mexican construction worker died in a trench collapse during a Parish utility project. It looks like no safety barriers etc were in place.
We have had lot of heavy rains recently so there is no excuse for not taking the precautions.
They haven't named the contractor yet but my feeling is that it is going to be a low bid outfit that exploits there workers with low pay and unsafe working conditions.
I remember one day many years ago filling in for an inspector on a 52" waterline project along the Mississippi River. It was a top notch local company and I was extremely impressed by their safety measures for trench safety. Time and expense did not matter when it came to workers safety.
http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/sttammany/12434866-172/video-photos-man-dead-another
We were staking a large sewer outfall near Witcher, OK. in the '70s and one day the trench walls sluffed. There were two young men covered, gone by the time they dug them out. Around here the practice of keeping a trench box in place wasn't very common in the '70s. After that the practice changed.
There are a lot of safety rules that seem either silly or non-applicable (My crew was written up on a COE job for not wearing hard hats...in the woods...3/4 mile from the dam construction...) but trench shoring is NOT one of them.
Young men gone too soon is always a sad day.
This is totally avoidable and totally inexcusable. That contractor deserves whatever he gets. The poor guys in the trench were probably not adequately trained, didn't know enough not to enter it, and would probably have been fired if they refused. Obviously there was no effort whatsoever to comply with OSHA trench safety regulations; for one thing it looks like the spoil pile is right up to the lip of the excavation, but in a 10' trench in sandy soil you need a trench box. I also blame the city or whoever hired the contractor for not ensuring that they complied with safety regulations instead of just going with the low bidder, qualifications be damned.
I agree with Paden; a lot of the safety stuff we have to comply with is completely over the top stupidity, but trench safety is NOT one of them.
With all of the safety and inspection rules in place today this should be an extremely rare incident. I'm sure it's not. My sympathies go out to his family and friends.
My only experience along this line happened in 1987. I was inspecting installation of a water line. One day we had about a half dozen extra workers on the job because they had just finished some other project they had and couldn't start a different one until the next day. I made a point to meet each of the new workers, just in case one or more ended up staying with our project. The next morning all of them were 130 miles away starting a gas line installation project. Shortly after noon one of them was dead from a trench collapse. That really brought it home to me just how short your life can become if you do, or are expected to do, something incredibly stupid.
Very, very sad for the poor fellow that passed away but also very sad that companies out there don't give a crap about their employees.
It reminds me of a time way back in the cro-magnon age when I was surveying in L.A. area freeways. I was standing out on the painted lines with a single cone, taking shots. The worst moment I can think of was standing at the end of a gore while cars were buzzing by at 60+ mph on one side of me while other cars were trying to merge into traffic on the other side. Our major safety requirement was steel-toed boots.
Every time I think about that, I think about how stupid I was to be out there in the first place. But it also makes me shake my head about the lack of safety regulations back then. I'm lucky to be here typing this message today.
And, quite honestly, I don't remember if the problem was the lack of safety regulations or just the fact that we ignored them and didn't get caught. I was basically oblivious because I was just taking orders and didn't know any better at the time.
"Strain noted the presence of three trench boxes — large metal frames with two panel sides connected by thick bars — stacked just feet from where the collapse occurred but said there were none at the cave-in site itself."
Sounds like the company may have given a crap about their employees after all. Sometimes it is up to the employees to use the safety devices they are given.
How many times are we asked "aren't you scared of snakes". My answer is not as much as cars. If I see a field crew taking unnecessary risks, I will call their office and hope that fellow surveyors will extend the same courtesy to me. I hope I never have to call someone's home and give the bad news. I tell my guys that nothing is worth taking the risk. I bought the first reflectorless total station I saw to keep my crews as far as possible from the travel lanes. When manholes in the roadway need to be accessed, an off duty policeman is worth the price. There always will be risk. If the unthinkable happens, we need to be able to look ourselves in the mirror and say, we did what we could to minimize the risk.
Manslaughter charges and convictions for owner and project manager for a cave in death.
This is a Parish (county) project. There should have been inspectors from the Parish, design firm an/or contractor on site at some point. Plus, if you are going to hire immigrant laborers, somebody needs to be communicating with them in their language..
Strain is up for re-election and catching some flak lately over other issues. It will be interesting to see what his actions will be. A lot of top officials from the Parish were at the site.
There should NEVER be a person in an excavation without a competent person there to supervise and ensure required safety measures are in place. Ever. It's not enough to "give the employees the safety equipment", the company leadership has a legal (and in my opinion moral) obligation to ensure that their people work safely.
See the post below about the legal part.
Note regarding working in trenches.
It is also important to remember that the depth of a trench does not need to be very high to make a collapse a deadly environment. There was a job I worked on years ago where a gentleman lost his life in a four foot trench, he was buried to his chest and it crushed his internal organs.
I missed that part of the first article that stated that no competent person had been sent there to supervise the jobsite. If a competent person was there, he would have been one of the company's employees. When he unloaded the safety equipment, he was being competent. Once he ignored the use of safety equipment in my opinion he is not competent anymore. I agree with you, but none of that was reported in the article.
