Two excavation contractors in Colorado have been hit with six-figure penalties in two separate investigations by the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration for not protecting workers from trench collapse.
Workers have died on both of the contractors’ worksites – a 17-year-old worker and a 23-year-old, respectively – who were in trenches that collapsed.
On August 13, 2022, a 17-year-old worker was in the bottom of a trench in Greeley, Colorado, while a company foreman was also inside the trench digging into the wall using a drill with a spade shovel attachment, according to OSHA online records. The foreman was searching for a utility line when a slab of asphalt lodged in the wall came loose, caving in the trench on both employees. The 17-year-old was struck on the head by the asphalt slab and died. The foreman was struck on the shoulder and was treated at a hospital and released.
GoldStar Excavation and Sewer of Keenesburg was cited with failure to provide a protective system to prevent cave-in and was issued a penalty of $15,625.
Then on March 8, 2023, OSHA opened another investigation and found the same company violating the same rule on a site in Fort Collins. An employee was installing sewer lines in an 8.5-foot-deep trench on November 9, 2022, with no cave-in protection. “The employer routinely assigns workers to work inside trenches that are not protected from cave-ins by an adequate protective system,” the citation issued May 8, 2023, reads.
The same foreman injured in the previous fatal incident just three months earlier was also in the trench, according to OSHA. A photograph shows the trench was in the middle of a road, and a worker was holding a vibrating power tool, OSHA’s citation says.
Other violations from the November 9 incident include failure to provide an exit ladder for workers in the trench, no daily inspections of the trench before workers entered and failure to train workers on trenching hazards.
