trenching safety in the news...

wasabi · Dec 21, 2003

Anyone else read the Sunday morning NY Times? There is an in-depth piece in today's about a plumber's apprentice who died in 2002 in a sewer pipe trench cave-in. Very sad, but informative about a topic I thought my fellow tractor owners at TBN, one of my favorite forums, would apprecaite.

While not that many here are digging twelve foot deep trenches, nor perhaps subject to or familiar with OSHA rules (just by way of reference, not a dig. or non dig...let's not open the "governemnt" jar), inadvertant lessons can be learned from a situation so well covered.

Anyway, my point is the importance of safety on the job comes through loud and clear with this article and I think it is worth reading if you get the chance.

Let's be careful out there. Wishing Good Health, Happiness and Time to enjoy it to all!

Sabi

Junkman · Dec 21, 2003

The Sunday Times is like reading an encyclopidia.... which section is the article in and page number also will help..... thanks....

Egon · Dec 21, 2003

Trenches; simply put, if over five feet deep stay out of them unless properly shored or caged. Five feet can also be too deep when the spoil pile is too close and dirt conditions are not favorable.

And don't beleive the fellar who says he can look at a trench and say it is safe to enter.

And frozen soil don't count neither.

When it collapses all you hear/know is a little "thump " after the fact. That is if you were not in it .

Egon

RoyJackson · Dec 21, 2003

I strongly agree with Egon on that advice!!

Before I got drafted (way back when) I worked as a plumber's apprentice. Been in my share of trenches..buried up to my waist in one of them.
You don't have to be completely buried to be in trouble. I could breath OK when the dirt was upto my waist, but if you're up to your upper chest or neck, it's darn near impossible to breath.
Another thing I really hated...when the bottom of the trench was sloppy mud. You know the kind that practically sucks your boots off when you try to walk through it. When it's like that in the bottom of a trench, you're just not going to move fast enough to react.

Renze · Dec 21, 2003

Hmm... Over here in the Netherlands, we dont put electricity, drinking water supply and waste water pipes any deeper than the legally prescribed 70 cm.. Over here, the frost line is not as deep, so we dont have this sort of accidents.

...You could also just dig a ditch, with sloping sides. You will be moving three or four times as much dirt, but safety always has a price...

MossRoad · Dec 21, 2003

Yeah. Anybody remember geting burried in sand at the beach. It doesn't take much to keep you from being able to move.

keeney · Dec 21, 2003

When the excavators came to dig my water line in for my new house, I figured they would make a trench about one bucket width wide, lay the pipe in, jump down and solder the connections real quick.

I knew I was wrong when I saw the size of the machine they brought - it was slightly smaller than my house. They made the trench wider than it was deep. A 12 to 15-foot wide, 10-foot deep, 100-foot long hole in the ground is a big hole.

- Rick

Junkman · Dec 21, 2003

Just think of the mess that they will make when that soldered copper pipe has to be replaced due to pin hole leaks......

PineRidge · Dec 22, 2003

<font color="blue">Just think of the mess that they will make when that soldered copper pipe has to be replaced due to pin hole leaks......
</font>

Plastic would have been my 1st choice there.......