PITTSBURGH — The company responsible for a trench collapse that killed a 21-year-old man last year is facing $174,000 in fines from the federal government.

On Sept. 28, 2015, Jacob Casher of Clearfield, Pa., died in a trench collapse at a work site behind the Shelbourne Personal Care facility on Dinnerbell Road in Penn Township.

Casher had been hired three weeks earlier by the Hookstown, Beaver County, franchise of A Rooter Man of Pittsburgh.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Pittsburgh Area office Tuesday announced citations against A Rooter Man of Pittsburgh after a six-month investigation.

The four-man crew was relocating sewer lines for the personal care home. They were ready to leave for the day at 2 p.m. when Casher went back into the 11-foot deep trench to retrieve a shovel left behind, according to police.

The trench caved in, burying Casher in thousands of pounds of soil. He was pronounced dead four hours later when emergency responders were finally able to recover his body.

OSHA cited the company with two willful and seven serious violations. It faces $174,000 in fines which must be paid within 15 business days unless it contests the findings, according to a news release. It also must demonstrate to OSHA that corrective action was taken for each citation.

“A Rooter Man of Pittsburgh knowingly took unacceptable risks in an excavation, which led to a tragic and preventable death of a young man with his whole future ahead,” said Christopher Robinson, director of OSHA’s Pittsburgh office in the release. “Common-sense safety practices would have prevented this trench from turning into a worker’s grave.”

The first willful violation listed in OSHA’s report was that the soil from the excavation and other equipment and materials were not kept at least 2 feet from the edge of the trench.

The second willful violation was that each employee was not protected from cave-ins by an adequate protective system designed in accordance with OSHA standards.

The report also stated the company did not have a safety and health program that would have included training on identifying and controlling hazards, no one at the work site was trained in first aid, the workers in the trench were not wearing hard hats, employees at the site were exposed to an unprotected electrical conduit uncovered 4 feet from the building that they had to dig above and underneath and water had accumulated in the trench and was not removed.

The company did not have any previous violations listed on the OSHA website.

Rooter Man is a national company with 450 locally owned franchises in the United States and Canada, according to its website.

The owners of the Hookstown franchise did not immediately return calls for comment Wednesday.

The website lists Jim and April English as owners.