Massachusetts Contractor Faces $4.6M Fine After Fatal Trench Collapse

Revoli couldn’t be reached for remark.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation into the incident discovered that staff from Revoli have been eradicating sandy soil and putting in metal plates outdoors of a trench when backfilled sand collapsed and trapped two staff inside the ditch. 

Revoli was cited for seven willful citations, 33 repeat violations and 17 critical violations, together with for failing to supply staff with a protected method to exit the ditch, lack of satisfactory cave-in safety and having unsupported underground utilities. The citations additionally embrace sustaining spoil piles inside 2 ft of an excavation, neglecting to put in a shoring system per the design and utilizing a broken protecting system.

The company additionally mentioned that the agency uncovered workers to quite a few electrical and fall hazards. 

Revoli has 15 enterprise days to request an off-the-cuff OSHA convention or contest the findings earlier than an impartial federal fee.

“This cave-in is a solemn reminder of the hazards building staff face when fundamental security procedures and protected engineering options are ignored,” U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer mentioned in an announcement. “We are going to proceed holding employers accountable and offering sources devoted to hazard coaching and required engineering controls to place a cease to those preventable tragedies.”