A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
All right, we turn now to a dangerous problem for construction workers, specifically those who work in trenches - these deep ditches you see along the highway at large construction sites and new home builds. Now, without the proper systems in place, those trenches can collapse in an instant, burying the workers alive in a dense slurry of mud and water. Members of NPR's investigations team have found that 250 workers have died from such trench cave-ins over the last decade. Cheryl W. Thompson, an investigative correspondent and senior editor, joins us now. So, Cheryl, tell us about this investigation. What's it about?
CHERYL W THOMPSON, BYLINE: So this investigation, we worked together with Texas Public Radio and the program 1A and reviewed hundreds of pages of federal government inspection reports, court records, state safety reports and other documents to determine how many people died in trench collapses, what happened to cause the cave-ins and whether those deaths could have been avoided.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. What did you discover?
THOMPSON: Well, A, we found that trench collapse deaths are indeed preventable and often occurred when employers violated federal regulations by not having the proper equipment in place, like those metal boxes to keep dirt walls from caving in and suffocating workers. Our investigation also found that companies fined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration - we know it, of course, as OSHA - sometimes ignored the penalties and faced no consequences. For example, one business in the Boston area still owes more than $1.4 million from the deaths of two workers eight years ago. And at least 10 companies that employed workers who were killed had been sanctioned before for not protecting employees doing trench work. One business was cited five times in four years, another four times in as many years.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So those are civil penalties, right? I mean, what about criminal charges?
THOMPSON: Right. Well, criminal charges are pretty rare. We discovered 11 cases out of more than 200 where authorities criminally charged an employer. And even when someone was charged in connection with a worker's death, those charges were often reduced, meaning that employers usually got off with a fine, probation or a few months in jail.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, one of the reporters on this project went to Boston to talk with a witness to one of these horrific incidents in which two men died. Cheryl, tell us about that.
THOMPSON: Yes. Ken Bruno (ph) was the witness, and he had not been back to the site since 2016. He's a carpenter who was working inside a townhouse on Boston's South End while the two men were working outside in a trench. They were installing a drain, and Bruno stepped outside for a quick smoke and was standing on the sidewalk next to the trench when it collapsed.
KEN BRUNO: I'm looking down, and the guys are down there working. And next thing you know, I seen part of the trench engulf him from the waist down real quick, like, whoosh.
THOMPSON: Bruno recalls that a section of pipe attached to a fire hydrant burst, flooding the trench and the street with so much water and mud that it just smothered the two workers.
BRUNO: I knew that they were done.
THOMPSON: One of those buried alive was a father of six. There's a good chance that both of those workers would be alive today had their employer installed a trench box. It was the third time that that company had been cited by OSHA for unprotected trenches.
MARTÍNEZ: So about OSHA - I mean, their job is to make sure workplaces are safe places. So can they come in and close down a business if they're repeatedly violating regulations?
THOMPSON: Well, no. Only a court has that authority. What OSHA can do is post imminent danger notices at a job site if it believes the violations pose a threat of serious physical harm or death to workers. But it seldom does that. It's happened only 18 times since 2014.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. Now, what about employers? What should they be doing? I mean, the trench boxes, they can be expensive and can take time to set up and install, and, of course, time is money.
THOMPSON: Right. Well, Jack Martin was an experienced plumber, putting in sewer lines behind a shopping center in Houston in 2019. He had repeatedly asked his employer, Best Plumbing LLC, to get trench boxes for him and his co-workers. We spoke with his father, Larry Martin, whom Jack called just days before he was killed in a trench collapse.
LARRY MARTIN: Two days prior before it happened, he told me. He says, Dad - he said, you know, I've already asked them a couple of times, and they told me no, they're too expensive.
THOMPSON: I should mention, A, we reached out to the company's owner, who declined to comment on the incident. We also talked to a woman in Texas named Aubrey Fryday, who lost her son in a trench collapse in 2016. She wondered why OSHA didn't do something about the company where her son Nathan worked. She believed officials there were operating an unsafe workplace.
AUBREY FRYDAY: OSHA needs to do more than what they're doing. It shouldn't take a death for them to act. They're just all getting too lazy and sitting behind their desks and doing nothing.
THOMPSON: OSHA doesn't necessarily see it that way. We sat down here in Washington with Scott Ketcham, the agency's director of construction. Here's what he said.
SCOTT KETCHAM: We're doing everything we can to protect workers every day for America. When we find them, we cite them, and when we cite them, we hold them accountable.
THOMPSON: Ketcham acknowledged that more needs to be done, particularly when it comes to holding companies accountable.
KETCHAM: And that is a top priority right now.
MARTÍNEZ: You know, Cheryl, it's pretty awful to think that this is happening, especially when it's a type of death that seems like it could be avoidable. I mean, it's got to be really, really difficult for the families here.
THOMPSON: Oh, it definitely is. Melinda Mattocks-Ushry's brother, Kelvin Mattocks, was one of the two men killed in the Boston trench collapse that I mentioned to you earlier. My colleague, Robert Benincasa, spoke with her at Kelvin's gravesite in rural North Carolina.
MELINDA MATTOCKS-USHRY: This is his resting place. This is where he was raised, in the church here. His wife let us bring him home. She knew this is where he would want to be. It hurts so bad.
THOMPSON: She thinks about how things could have turned out differently, had her brother's employer, Kevin Otto, protected that trench so that the walls wouldn't have caved in on him and the other worker.
MATTOCKS-USHRY: There should have been protection for these guys. There should have been a way out of that hole for these guys. I would love for someone to do something about people that's going to work to do a honest day work - be protected while at work.
THOMPSON: And, A, we heard from family members all across the country who agree that more needs to be done.
MARTÍNEZ: Cheryl W. Thompson, investigative correspondent and senior editor. Thank you very much for bringing this story.
THOMPSON: Thank you, A.
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