Why We Take The Time to Shield and Shore
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Safety requirements and regulations, unfortunately, were not borne of pre-thought and foresight, rather lessons learned and clear visioned hindsight. If you’ve ever thought a regulation was too strict or seemed a little unnecessary, the tragedies that led to its inception were not.
Even with OSHA regulations and job site safety requirements in place, a simple internet search for “trench collapse” yields thousands of results of tragic endings. A prime example is of two pipelayers who were installing sewer pipes in Colorado in a trench that was 31-feet long, 6-feet wide, and 14-feet long. They were buried alive when the unsupported trench collapsed. Their crew attempted to dig them out but were only able to get a pipe down to one of the men, allowing him to survive a few hours, breathing and communicating through the pipe as he laid buried below. Rescue crews attempted to use shoring equipment to stabilize the trench that had standing water, a condition known to weaken trench walls. Attempts to save the men were unsuccessful. Had any sort of bracing elements been used, those two pipe-layers may be at home with their families.
Each year, nationwide, approximately 25 trench workers die in the trenches, and nearly 75% of those deaths are caused by cave-ins or collapsing sidewalls. In 2003, there were 53 trench collapse fatalities, which was enough to spark huge change in the shoring industry. Changes that make the workplace safer for the men and women in the trenches. For the most part, these deaths are preventable. In fact, of those 53 fatalities, 64% of the sites had no protective equipment in place, 12% had the protective equipment available, but it was not being used, and 24% of the sites had protective equipment improperly installed. That’s right, 100% of those fatalities could have been prevented with properly installed shoring or shielding equipment.
At North East Shoring, we believe that a single death of a trench worker is one too many. We are committed to protecting the lives of all excavators and construction workers. We are dedicated to selling and renting shoring equipment that keeps the trench and OSHA off your back