Abstract: An eight-worker crew was installing an underground electrical conduit. One crewmember used a backhoe to excavate a 17.7-meter-long, 1.2-meter-wide, 3.0-meter-deep trench. A second crewmember was using a shovel to level the bottom of the excavation at the end of the trench near the backhoe. That portion of the trench, which was not shored or sloped, caved in. Two workers climbed out of the trench, but the employee near the backhoe was not able to make it out and was subsequently buried in the cave-in. Emergency medical services extracted the buried employee from the trench and pronounced him dead at the scene.