 cubic yards of soil, so you can do the math. If you get caught in a trench collapse, it's very likely you're going to die, either being crushed or suffocated or both. NPR and our partners reviewed hundreds of pages of OSHA inspection reports, court records, personnel files, and other documents, and analyzed 10 years of the agency's workplace accident data. We found that lives were lost because employers failed to follow government rules for making trenches safe.