Person suffers burns during digging

A construction labourer suffered burn injuries while working in a trench to repair a septic tank piping. The person using a power tool to remove the damaged pipe hit an LPG line in the trench and the sparks led to fire engulfing the person. The injured with difficulty came out of the trench and rolled over the grass to extinguish flames. The person who engaged the injured was penalised for various lapses.

From the description about the incident, the lapses that come to notice are,

1. Whether any permission taken for digging where the gas lines are present. It is a widely followed safety practice to identify presence of utility lines like electrical/gas/water in the area proposed for digging and take precautions to ensure safety of the persons and property. If it is in a factory area, concerned engineer will give clearance and in case of public area, town planning engineer will give such clearance.
2. From the photograph in the weblink, service line identification marks are not visible in the area.
3. Absence of measures for preventing trench cave-in.
4. Lack of proper means of access/egress from the trench like a ladder at 30 m distance intervals.
5. Whether only one person was engaged for such work and if not what happened to other workers.
6. Absence of supervision.

Most of accidents reported are leak/fire/explosion due to puncturing of gas lines during digging.

Trench cave-in

The following article appeared in free e-mail news letter of bongrade.com on Wednesday,July 6, 2011, Volume 2, Issue 27. The important points to be noted for any worker in trenches are marked in different colour. One should be grateful for publishers of the news letter. Trench workers can learn a lesson from this and follow good safety practices at their workplace.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sight was enough to make three grown men cry. Their co-worker was chest-deep in mud and only a few inches from death.

Glen D. Rogers of Elsah, IL, said the trench cave-in at his worksite felt like an entire football team had piled on top of him. He couldn’t move and could barely breathe.

“I thought I was going to die…I just wanted to talk to my wife and kids.”

Those were his desperate thoughts as co-workers and firefighters worked feverishly to save him.

Not long before that, Rogers, 34, was busily working in a trench to tap into a sewer line for a new house. He had just cleared off a section of pipe and began walking away when a contractor yelled that the trench was collapsing. Rogers looked behind him and then at his feet, which were buried in mud. Seconds later his legs disappeared, followed by his waist.

At one point, co-workers quickly jammed a couple of boards in the hole to offset the pressure that was crushing Rogers. Both Rogers and his wife believe this is what saved him from certain death.“His co-workers basically saved his life. If they hadn’t done that (with the boards), he would be dead,” said wife Audrey Stewart.

A grateful Stewart said all employees should receive some type of emergency rescue training.

For Rogers, the cave-in fortunately stopped at his chest, but with every breath he took, the dirt acted like a vice tightening around him.Rogers instructed his co-workers to begin a rescue plan by digging a ditch on the other side of the trench he was in. When firefighters arrived, they continued the work.“They dug down to my waist and the blood rushed back into my legs. I thought I had lost my legs because I looked down and they were flat.”

The rescue took about four hours. Luckily, Rogers recovered quickly and was back on light duty a few days later.

Since the ordeal, Rogers and fellow workers have adopted a new sense of job safety by taking nothing for granted and always wearing their safety gear.

“I now find myself green again, being real cautious about where I walk”, Rogers said.