Are you thinking of getting a new job? You may want to check this list out before applying – these are the career paths that are most likely to see you dead! The ranking of the items on this list are based on US statistics, so they may vary in other countries.
Death Ratio: 27 out of 100,000
Making up 12% of the total deaths a year, with 905 on average, it also makes up the bottom of our list due to the huge amount of workers it employs. Truckers are highly trained before they can be put out on the road, and for good reason. Passenger vehicles get confused and scared around large trucks, leading to reckless driving that forces the truck driver to use evasive skills that can end up causing them to crash. 70% of trucking related fatalities occur because of this. Another problem with trucking is unsafe rest stops. They are often far away from any authority, leaving the trucker open to muggings.
Death Ratio: 34 out of 100,000
A pretty straight forward job when it comes to the amount of danger involved. Climbing up giant poles is risky, especially when you balance at weird angles to work on a line. Decked out in highly protective gear to stop from being shocked and safety equipment to help them stay up, it’s not flawless and some 36 people die every year under this job.
Death Ratio: 35 out of 100,000
Carrying heavy equipment, kneeling, bending, climbing, heat, wind, long hours; roofing takes a lot of work. The physical strain often leads to carelessness to make the job easier, and workers don’t always find it beneficial to wear their safety gear. When you’re working so high up, this is a huge mistake. Besides the non fatal injuries of nail guns, burns from hot bitumen, and other possible dangers, there’s a huge risk of slipping or tripping on ladders, scaffolds, and slanted roofs. In 2005 reports were that there were 2 times more injuries than there were workers, and 94 deaths.
Death Ratio: 38 out of 100,000
With big toys and long hours, an accident is bound to happen. Unfortunately it happens a bit too often, about 307 times a year actually. Big business’s and small family owned farms alike have to do repetitive jobs for long hours at a time with very dangerous equipment and chemicals. Improper training or even just a slight moment of unawareness can lead to major issues such as two tractors colliding or you poisoning yourself. Then there’s always the odd rancher who tried to walk behind a horse and got a horseshoe to the skull.
Death Ratio: 42 out of 100,000
A job category ranging from the guys who pick up garbage after construction, to warehouse machinery operators, crane operators, and the guys who pick up your trash every week, 38 people total died during the year. Some jobs require you to work in extreme weather, at large heights, and do repetitive jobs for long hours. In big cities, trash collectors are constantly at risk of cutting themselves on glass and being hit by cars while loading garbage onto a truck. Along with physical hazards, even bigger issues are the toxins and chemicals that they are constantly exposed to that can cause severe long term damage.
Death Ratio: 61 out of 100,000
These are the guys that build the giant metal frames for new buildings, bridges, and other large structures. Obviously not a job for the feint of heart, one wrong step can send you falling several stories high to a bone shattering end, which is the way most of these fatalities have gone. Even using the best safety gear they can, and strict rules stopping them from working in unfavorable weather, the numbers still float around 31 deaths a year.
Death Ratio: 81 out of 100,000
Equipped with already dangerous tools, lumber workers are pressured to work fast and hard in places that aren’t always ideal for a guy with a heavy spinning saw. A lot of logging takes place on hills, where they are susceptible to high winds, falling branches, and hidden roots or vines. Though for a while it was the most dangerous job, most lumber companies are heavily safety regulated now, and the number of deaths has decreased in the last few years bringing statistics down to 64 deaths a year.
Death Ratio: 88 out of 100,000
Although killing the second most workers a year, 101 total, it’s still less dangerous than the next two. Most people think of the large commercial and passenger jets when they think of pilots, but these numbers come mostly from Crop Dusting and testing new and experimental flight equipment. Crop Dusters work long days, expose themselves to chemicals, often land in stripless fields, and fly low around nearly invisible powerlines. This field also factors in helicopters that are often put in dangerous and risky situations.
Death Ratio: 142 out of 100,000
Commonly regarded as the most dangerous job you can have, the Commercial Fishing industry reported 51 deaths on average a year. With heavy equipment on board, rough weather, sudden storms, rogue waves, ropes all over, and no where to run when things get bad, the dangers here certainly aren’t hidden.
Death Ratio: 184 out of 100,000
Currently in the lead for most fatal job is the Cell Phone Tower Worker, a position new to the Census of Fatal Occupational Industries. In 2006, 18 people were killed on the job. Though it appears to be a small number, it means you have a much higher chance of dying here than in any other career choice. Why so dangerous? Cell phone companies are constantly trying to build more, build higher, and build faster. Aside from that, the carriers hire small contractors to build these towers. These contractors don’t always have all the right safety equipment, and it is not always used correctly. If a worker is damaged or fatally injured, any bills or lawsuits go to the contractor since the carrier and tower owners are rarely on the construction grounds, and the phone company gets off free (most of the time). To top it off, due to the phone company not having to pay for these incidents, very little is being done outside of Unions to regulate safety.
Sources for statistics: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, and U.S. Department of Defense, 2004. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2005), and “the latest BSL” data
Contributor: Trigun472
That’s some *****ed up *****,man!
70% of truck driver fatalities are caused by car drivers? That doesn’t sound right… Otherwise, yeah I can see how these industries are particularly dangerous ones. Does the military count as an occupation for the purpose of this list?
Interesting list Trigun, thanks
FMCSA and AAA both have found through their studies that 72%-75% of the wrecks involving big trucks are caused by the drivers of the other vehicle and not the truck driver.
Trigun
Where are you from? These statistics are HUGE, ie in Australia, I work underground (and have for 14 years) and the fatality frequency rate is 2.8:100,000.
Our most dangerous industry is agriculture and forestry which has a fatality frequency rate of 7:100,000
spart: The mining (and aviation) industry is mostly at the forefront of risk management isn’t it? Because there is such a high perceived risk of injury or fatality in that occupation a much higher priority is put on risk management than say, farming, which a lot of people think of as slow and peaceful (I’m exaggerating).
Oh and I just looked, the Victorian government says the fatality rates per 100,000 in Australia (BUT, these are for the period 1989 to 1992, so a bit outdated) are as follows:
# Commercial pilots – 197 deaths
# Fishermen and fisherwomen – 117 deaths
# Forestry labourers – 116 deaths
# Drilling plant operators – 72 deaths
# Mining labourers – 66 deaths
# Ship’s pilots and deck officers – 54 deaths
# Structural steel labourers – 43 deaths
# Truck drivers – 41 deaths
# Excavation and earthmoving machinery operators – 39 deaths
From here:
http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Work_related_fatalities?OpenDocument
And according to the NSW government (Australia again) if you’re going to die at work – there’s about a 20% probability that it’ll be while you’re driving to or from work. And if you’re actually working (as opposed to commuting) then it rises to 33%.
From here: http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=NB02042.pdf
Wow, I’ve had 4 of those jobs (roofer, rancher, trash man, and lumberjack). I never really thought of them as abnormally dangerous but I guess the numbers don’t lie.
In my opinion, the most dangerous job I’ve ever worked was lead tong hand on an oil drilling rig. I’ve never been close to serious injury (knowingly at least) in any other line of work, but I came very close to having my right arm cut off by a steel cable while working on a rig. The driller was running the draw works while half asleep, I was dead tired, and conditions weren’t exactly conductive to safe operation anyway. The draw works had a habit of tangling up the lead tong cable (lead tongs = a giant pipe wrench suspended from a counterweight and operated by a pulley and cable system). My job was to attach the lead tong to the drill stem and hold it in place while the draw works did the rest. I reached into the draw works to untangle the cable. The driller wasn’t paying attention and pulled the lever to crank down on the lead tong, with my arm firmly in the middle of the cable. Luckily I got my arm out before the cable tightened, and a crescent wrench thrown squarely at the driller’s hard hat woke him up for the rest of the night. I never went back after that.
I thought for sure Cops and Fire Fighters were gonna make the list.
Police would love for you to think their job is dangerous, shooting it out with all those criminals every day. The reality is that most of the time, they are dealing with people like you, and they're much more dangerous to you than you are to them. More cops die in simple traffic accidents than from other causes anyway. Being a cop is nothing special, except for the power they can exercise over everyone else.
Great job, Trigun. Very interesting list.
Tempyra
Need to be careful re: stats, we had several underground deaths in 1996/97 due to inrushes and an explosion and the industry numbers were skewed for a while. This is why we now quote frequency rates, as opposed to total number.
I agree with your comments regarding farming as well, in addition to major complacency regarding personal safety, a lot of people live in their work places (ie the farmhouse) and are fatally injured in vehicle/quad bike rollovers that would have otherwise been reported as traffic incidents had one been traveling from their home to a (more) distant workplace.
Military jobs surely must have the highest fatality rates…
spart, yeah that’s true about the average being a bit skewed over the late ’90s. Gretley was in ’96. Which explosion are you thinking of? The only ones I can think of in Australia around that time frame were the two at Moura (1994).
Another problem with trucking is unsafe rest stops – so a proportion of truckers deaths are from muggings? or is this used as an excuse for not taking their breaks, leading to accidents from tiredness?
Moura 1994 and Endeavor in (I recall) 1995.
Gretley Colliery was as grim as f*ck.
Great list Trigun!
I wonder if the lumberjack category includes tree trimmers? My sister’s fiance almost bit the dust while employed in this line of work. The branch he was working on was half dead and swung around the wrong way as he cut it. It knocked him to the ground so hard that his pelvis was shattered, along with broken ribs and major contusions. He was one of the fortunate ones, though. He has since recovered and is living a fairly normal life, but it was touch and go for a while on whether he’d ever walk again.
Great List Trigun. Some of these I would never have thought particularly dangerous. Good job.
Tempyra: Truck driver fatalities are caused more often than not by the driver taking evasive action. Doesn’t surprise me; I actually saw a transport go up on two wheels when swerving and braking to avoid a stupid kid in a tricked out little Honda Civic. Would have been safer for him to take out the idiot in the rice rocket.
We had another truck driver who lived just outside of town die when he drove his rig into a ditch rather than tangle with a couple of young men who were racing on the highway.
Actually would have been more than two wheels, would have been more like 8 or 10, but all on the same side of the vehicle.
How about President of the United States? Of the forty-two individuals to have been our chief executive, seven died while in office (16.67%), four of them by assassination (9.52%).
i didnt expect Cell Phone Tower Workers to be on top.
I thought they always used very precatious safety gear.
I thought there were be bull fighters, army personnel’s and cooks career on the list!
Dear sgvaibhav,
In 2005 our then 35 year old son Sean was killed in a 200 ft fall from a cell tower in Yuma, Colorado. During the OSHA investigation the company was cited for 12 major safety violations and fined over $150,000. However, because of Colorado state labor laws, his wife and daughters were unable to sue the company due to the fact that "criminal negligence" would have to have taken place for them to be able to sue.
In other words it would have to be proven that somebody (from the company) had to have physically thrown my son off of the tower. The fact that he had been coerced into using unsafe climbing gear and to work beyond the safe number of climbs for a given period of time, made no difference.
Most state laws protect the small contractor companies that bid on these contracts because it would be “too costly” for them to be able to compete with the larger companies if they had to follow the existing Safety Rules “Suggested” (that’s right “suggested”) that are presently in place through OSHA.
Sean was killed when a safety device on his “borrowed” climbing harness failed when he leaned back while installing an antenna.
I am saddened to say that on that same day, 25 February 2005, another young man in North Carolina was killed in a like accident.
This is defiantly a case where safety takes a far second place to corporate greed and most state legislators work hard to keep it that way.
RichB
Mom424: “Would have been safer for him to take out the idiot in the rice rocket.”
According to the US Department of Labor, in truck – other vehicle accidents 74% of fatalities were the occupants of the non-truck vehicle. So that statement is unlikely.
Hi guys.
Temp you’d be surprised at how many drivers don’t consider that trucks don’t have the maneuver ability of a car, and end up causing them to crash. The worst part is that they they end up crashing themselves so they don’t hit the guy whos fault it is.
No, Military doesn’t count as an occupation for this. I was going to add it as an honorable mention, but forgot
As for the President, no Presidents have died in many years. So according to the stats I’m going by, it might be the safest job right now =)
What about underwater welders?
Wow, I didn’t expect truck drivers there, but what can’t be a surprise? Nice list.
Trigun: Nice job on the list. I like this sort of stuff – studied risk management for awhile (mostly minerals industry specific though).
Maybe the US/Canada is different – I don’t hear much about car drivers causing truck driver fatalities here in Australia/New Zealand. Fatigue, mechanical issues, overloading, and truck:truck crashes seem to kill more truck drivers. Maybe I’ll go look for some stats and see if there is a significant difference between US/Canada and here
what about taxi drivers? that can be dangerous too..
What about Oil rig workers?
Taxi’s would be the next on the list Miki.
Bonus that I forgot to add:
Military – Current death rates for the US military is about 400 per 100,000. Easily topping the chart.
Cool, not working on any of these.
Still interested in how many truckers are killed in muggings, havent been able to find anything seems most fatalities are caused by driver fatigue.
What about Firefighters and Police officers?
Why not include the military exactly? I wasn’t clear on that.
Trigun472, a terrifically interesting List!
My dad was an Iron Worker, but thankfully, his particular job kept him closer to terra firma. He installed safety perimeters for the U.S. Government, and freeway dividers (another highly deadly job in itself), but the bulk of his work was in the safety perimeters.
That took him all over the States, and in the summers, we’d join him. One summer took us to Montana, where he was, once again, installing a perimeter to keep people out of a missal silo site.
The surrounding area was all farmland, and at first the only kids we knew were the ones whose parents owned the motel we were living at.
When the job was obviously going to last about 6 weeks into the school year, my parents, rather weirdly, decided to let us start school up there even though it would mean 4 schools in 6 weeks, then back to our real schools.
Once I began school, and started to meet the older farm kids and their parents, I found that it was the rare family who didn’t have a member either killer or, more likely, maimed, by the farm machinery.
Even the older farm boys often were missing a finger or two, and no one thought anything about it!
My brother and I certainly found it odd, and found it odder, and scarier, that everyone in these little towns abutting the missal silos, had to wear dog-tags so that their bodies could be identified in case of a missal strike, since they were in a first-strike zone.
I have a friend who was an underwater welder – he always told me that was the most dangerous job…
fishing certainly belongs at number 2, i’m a commercial fisherman and last year went over in the gear but not before being caught in the stern causing my pelvis to shift position and tearing of ligaments i never knew before, luckily i didn’t get caught in the rope or it i might have drowned, dangerous stuff, aside from the mortality rate you gotta look at at people who do the job but don’t die, lots of breakages, and sprains
State your source. I work for OSHA and your list is flawed. I am curious where you got your statistics and your facts.
I am surprised something along the lines of highway construction was not on the list. Working close to thousands of moving vehicles on a daily basis has got be tempting fate. One inattentive driver or slight swerve can ruin your whole day.
This is completely ridiculous! What about our Soldiers, Marines, Airman, and Sailors that risk their lives for this country on a daily basis.
Pondscrum: I got my facts from various sites. I don’t know where they all got their sources from, but I do know that they all had similar numbers and were from different years. That’s why it’s an average. Where do you see is flawed?
El Chupacabra: Trigun472 (the contributor) already said in the comments that for the purpose of this list your military forces weren’t considered. I am assuming you are American.
Your list is flawed because you do not state a source. Anyone can generate a list without any facts to back it up. A list like this normally would be based on fact. You have no source, so it can only be assumed that the list is opinion. This list is not the same as the OSHA top 10 most fatal occupations. In fact, this list doesn’t even sync up with statistics from the CDC nor the BLS. No source = opinion = load of crap for a list of this nature.
I got my info from sites that source http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm#2006, the 2005, 2006, and 2007 data. Except the Cellphone tower info, that was from a couple news articles.
The sites I’ve been looking at site: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, and U.S. Department of Defense, 2004. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2005), and “the latest BSL” data (August 2007 from the sounds of it).
So if it doesn’t match up with whatever BSL data you have, that’s cause it’s an average of different years.
I assume that this list was for a) The United States and b) civilian jobs (thus why no military, police, and firefighters).
I had always heard that the most dangerous job in the world, right behind king crab fishing in Alaska, was sulpher mining, but that .
18. mregan: Wow, that would put the fatalities by assassination at 9,520:100,000! (Sorry, being facetious.)
Police and Firefighters ARE civilians. The police are not the military and should never be considered "non-civilians". That only encourages them to treat the public like the "enemy" (and we're getting closer and closer to that.)
Even so, if Police and Firefighters were included in this list, they wouldn't make the top ten, probably not even the top 20. Police especially, that is not a dangerous job. Police are a much greater threat to the public than criminals are to them.
what about war reporters?
Hey what about suicide bombers? I have heard that’s an extremely dangerous job!
Seriously though, nice job on the list Trigun. I really like lists with statistics built into them.
Also: Interesting stuff concerning cell tower workers.
my dad did number 9 for eight years and did number 8 for a while too. I wonder how dangerous being a police officer is compared to the top 10
i’ve done 2 of these jobs and to be honest the danger isn’t that great after you know what your doing, roofing is just common sense and fishing is just the same old routine, if you’ve been fishing for years then everything you do on a boat is just routine and the more you do it, the less chance there is of getting hurt
Interesting list. I too would have thought that Police and Firefighters would have made the list.
Cell phone towers #1?!!?
My hasn’t the cost of progress gotten a bit high? I wonder if all the folks who benefit from the provided services, yet whine at their out of pocket expenses realize how mush these services have cost the families of the blue collar worker who has died. I don’t have a cell, but I do use a modem, and also have been switched to HD TV, so I know that I also reap a reward from these worker’s deaths. There’s something to think on as I fall asleep.
Also, I wonder what the MOST current stats are on the mining industry considering all the international misfortune that befell in the last 1 and a half years.
Thank you for giving me another thing to ponder Trigun.
Trigun472: So shouldn’t this list be called “Top 10 Most Fatal Occupations in the US“? (Oddly, though, you’ve got a pic of UK binmen at #6.)
In response to the queries about military personnel being on this list – they are not eligible because the nature of their collective job is to be in harm’s way… soldiers are expected to take the risks of death as an expected part of their duty. I know, I’m a veteran.
As for the lumberjacks becoming a somewhat safer job these days, it’s partially because many lumber companies have implemented a required team organization for fallers and others who are at higher risk of injury and death… when I was fighting fires in the 90′s we had 2 and 3-man teams with the faller and at least one spotter (2 on bad wind days and when there were large numbers of widow-makers in the area).
Almost forgot… the MOST dangerous job in world is ‘Russian Roulette Trigger Mechanism Tester’ with death ratio of 1:6.
Okay, bad bad joke… The list was informative, but like many others, I’d love to see the statistical data backing up the counts and ordering in the list.
Hmm… should have said ‘anticipated’ or ‘possible’ in place of my second ‘expected’ up there on my first remark…
fascinating. I guess mobster is not really an occupation.
Nice job, Trigun! Interesting and well-researched list!
Henry O #49- The description at the top of the list mentions that this is based on US stats.
Tempyra #20- I think Mom meant safer for the truck driver – since he died trying to save a guy who put both of them in danger.
Good list Tri, very interesting and sad to see how many people die to ensure our basic comforts and even our crab cakes (photo #2). Always something we should keep in mind I think. And I think your sources sound just fine
statistical sources added to the end of the list.
Very nice and informative list! Thanks Trigun!
For those unfamiliar with how dangerous commercial fishing can be, you should check out a TV show called “The Deadliest Catch” on Discovery. It’s a reality show about king crab fishing crews who work at the Bering Sea. These guys have decades of experience, but they are indeed risking their lives against merciless sub-zero waters and unpredictable storms at one of the most wild and fatal seas in the world.
So why do they keep doing that when they could fish for other things at other places?
Because fishing crab king pays… BIG TIME.
So it’s not that they’re concerned about us getting crab in our table, it’s just that if they’re gonna risk their lives on their job, they might as well risk their lives for the big moolah
And although cell phone tower workers may be the most dangerous job, I just don’t see a TV show out of that…
Are you serious? contruction workers at number 5? Christ, my grandfather is a contruction worker! Thanks for this heads up, man!
Tempyra: I think you misread my comment. It would have been safer for the truck driver to take out the rice rocket than to try and avoid him. You made my point. The truck-driver almost took us out and other people in the surrounding lanes trying to avoid the little black honda.
That’s one well written list you’ve got there Trigun :0