Abstract: At 2:00 p.m. on October 6, 1988, Employee #1, who had been hired two days before, and a coworker were told to dig a trench next to an existing house for waterproofing the basement wall. The trench was about 8 ft deep by about 16 to 18 inches wide. The dirt wall caved in, pinning Employee #1 against the basement block wall. He was buried up to his waist and rescued by the local fire department. He was hospitalized for one day for observations and then released. The coworker was not affected by the cave-in. The untrained employees, who did not speak English very well, dug the unshored, unsloped trench next to a backfilled area. The owner/employer was not on-site when the cave-in occurred.