UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

At 3:15 p.m. on August 1, 2018, an employee was working with two coworkers to ex cavate a trench using an excavator (Caterpillar 305E CR) with a twelve inch exca vator bucket along with a rotary hammer, a jack hammer and shovels to lay commun ication cables. At some point, coworker #1, operating the excavator, shut off th e excavator to go talk with the foreman. Meanwhile, the employee, who also acted as coworker #1's spotter, entered the deepest part of the trench (ten feet long by two feet wide and four feet, eight inches deep) to hand dig under the two fo ot wall that sat at grade above him. Coworker #2 was in another section using a jackhammer to loosen soil and was faced away from the employee. Coworker #1 retu rned to the excavator and started it up and began to dig in the same spot in the trench where the employee was working. The excavator bucket struck the employee , who was hospitalized for crushing injuries that include: fractures to lumbar v ertebra with spinal cord injury, fractures to left arm and leg, fractured ribs, acute head trauma, and multiple contusions.