Abstract: At approximately 2:00 p.m. on September 11, 1990, Employee #1 was kneeling as he was testing soil in a 4 ft deep test pit at a construction site. A front-end loader operator dumped a load of dirt into the pit, burying Employee #1. Not realizing that a coworker had been in the hole, the loader operator compacted the dirt in the pit and then headed east. Another equipment operator, believing that a soil technician might have been testing in the pit, notified the foreman. Employee #1 was recovered, unconscious, from the pit and was transported by paramedics to a hospital for emergency medical attention. He remained in a coma for several days and died on September 20, 1990. Further details of the accident are available in the CAL-OSHA case file.