This explored the factors involved in 247 cases of geotechnical accidents from OSHA records 1984-2013.
For context, some research suggests that accidents are both more prevalent (12% higher than average) and more severe (47% higher than average) in the geotechnical engineering sector than in the construction industry as a whole.
Results:
The geotech phase of the project from the 247 cases was excavation, landfill, sewer-water treatment, and pipeline construction for both commercial building or family dwellings. ~15% of victims were working on family dwelling buildings, followed by 14% in sewer/water treatment.
Projects costing less than $500k were more likely to end up with occupational accidents, where they’re more likely to be managed by small or medium sized contractors.
Trenching & installing pipe, excavation, & pile driving were the three main activities contributing to accidents, constituting ~82% of the total accidents. In all three operations, the rate of a fatality in work-related accidents are more than 50%. Although contributing far fewer total fatalities, backfilling & compacting appeared to have a higher lethality at ~65% fatality rate (with only ~35% backfilling accidents resulting in a hospitalisation or non- hospitalisation injury).
For mechanisms, trench collapse, struck by a falling object/projectile, & wall collapse were the main types. Per these findings, approx. every 3 out of 4 workers (~73%) lost their lives due to wall collapse.
Across all cases analysed, just over half of them resulted in a fatality, 36% in hospitalisation injury & only 10% resulting in a non-hospitalised injury.
Inappropriate or none-provided equipment was evident in ~41% of cases, relevant to cave-in accidents because no shoring, sloping or trench shielding was present at the time of accident. ~22% of cases used inappropriate sequencing methods.
Expectedly, unstable, weak, soft & previously disturbed soils are more vulnerable to accidents. Soil type, water content of soil, enviro conditions, proximity to previously backfilled excavations, weight & vibration from heavy plant also affect soil stability.
Most accidents (~66%) occurred where type C soil was dominant (granular or cohesive soils with an unconfined compressive strength of 48 kPa or less). Heavy rainfall was associated with 33% of accidents. Nevertheless, the highest number of accidents (43%) occurred in disturbed soils.
In these cases, all injuries relating to asphyxia resulted in fatalities. Accidents with cuts/lacerations substantially ended with hospitalisation (71%).
~16% of victims in this sample were working on family dwellings & 14% sewer/water treatment. Other research found sewer systems (35%) & water supply systems (15%) to be areas with the highest trenching-related fatalities.
Authors: Özge AKBOĞA KALE, Tugba ESKISAR, 2018, Industrial Health
Study Link: https://doi.org/10.2486/indhealth.2017-0166
Link to the LinkedIn article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/work-related-injuries-fatalities-geotechnical-site-works-hutchinson
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