What is the Greatest Risk with Excavations?

All construction projects carry with them some degree of risk – not just excavations. However, excavation is widely accepted to be one of the most dangerous construction jobs around. Every year dozens of people are injured in excavation accidents, with some even losing their lives.

Risk prevention is, therefore, of huge importance when dealing with this type of construction work, and particularly in consideration of the greatest excavation risk of all – the cave-in.

Cave-Ins

Cave-ins are the most potentially catastrophic risks to affect excavation projects and the people who work on them. In fact, OSHA describes them as much more likely than any other type of excavation hazard to result in worker fatalities. This of course means that protecting construction workers from cave-ins should be at the very top of a foreman’s health and safety checklist, and to ensure that the risks posed by cave-ins are reduced as much as possible, a number of stringent safety measures have been imposed by construction industry groups and government bodies around the world. 

The first and foremost piece of advice given to all construction workers who find themselves operating within a trench environment is not to enter a trench without first assuring yourself that it is adequately reinforced and that all relevant safety checks have been performed, at regular intervals, in compliance with official health and safety guidelines.

Cave-In Safety Procedures

There are a number of ways that the likelihood of a cave-in occurring can be significantly lessened. Many of these are preventative, but some of them also offer guidance as to what to do if a cave-in were to take place. Preventative guidelines include:

• Keeping heavy equipment away from trench edges
• Regular inspection of trenches, including at the start and end of each shift
• Rigorous trench evaluation following inclement weather
• Installation of proper preventative systems, such as shoring
• Provide appropriate training 

Of all of these safety measures, the installation of preventative systems is perhaps the most important. These systems might include anything from warning systems for mobile equipment to atmospheric contaminant testing. The most important system, however, is the one which reinforces the trench and protects workers, not just from cave-ins, but also from other hazards posed by loose rock or soil, unsecured equipment or routine health and safety issues such as trips or falls. A good system must therefore include at least one of the following measures:

• Sloping the ground
• Shoring
• Shielding (e.g. with a trench box)
• Benching the ground

Groundforce have a training division in order to ensure that anyone working in excavations is trained to a safe level of competancy. View available courses