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Los 33
#12369 10/13/10 05:17 PM
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ryck Offline OP
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Watching the Copiapo mine rescue story I was thinking that if there's any job I would never want to have to do, it's going down into a mine. It's hard to imagine how dreadful it must be to work around huge and dangerous pieces of machinery, with explosives, somewhere far underground in a dark, dirty, damp place.

I have a friend in Newfoundland whose father worked in the Bell Island mine which not only went down into the ground but also reached 3 miles out under the ocean floor. I was in a cafe having fish and chips with my friend, and looking across the ocean waves at Bell Island while he told me about his Dad working the mine, and I recall the only thought I had was: "Not me. Not in a million years."

How fortunate many of us have been to have had better choices.

ryck

Last edited by ryck; 10/13/10 11:00 PM. Reason: Remove redundancy

ryck

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Re: Los 33
ryck #12383 10/14/10 12:59 AM
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I can only say to that AMEN!


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

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Re: Los 33
ryck #12384 10/14/10 02:40 AM
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Originally Posted By: ryck
Watching the Copiapo mine rescue story I was thinking that if there's any job I would never want to have to do, it's going down into a mine. It's hard to imagine how dreadful it must be...

Naw. Even if you got trapped down there for a few months, it would still be way better than being married to Dick Cheney.

Re: Los 33
ryck #12389 10/14/10 04:58 AM
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Many years ago, responding to a teaser in The Village Voice, I got hold of a copy of the United Mine Workers Journal that featured an article about its members who work in 20" (Yep! Thats twenty inch) coal seams...pay differential, but all the same....

The story and photos were terrifying...still give me the willies when I think back on them.

The recent incident aside, mines like Copiapo seem like paradise by comparison.


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Re: Los 33
ryck #12427 10/15/10 02:51 AM
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It could be worse. An ex-partner of mine had a friend who was a deep-sea underwater welder for an oil companies.

Those guys have a job that's so dangerous it makes working a coal seam look like being a beautician. They often stay underwater at absurd depths in tiny bathyscaphes for days or weeks at a time, breathing a helium-oxygen mixture and working with high-voltage underwater welding rigs. On one particular dive, my friend went down to do a job with three co-workers. They were down for something like a week. A seal in their bathyscaphe blew out; four people went down, two came back alive.

I'm told serving on the deck of an aircraft carrier is even more dangerous. A client of mine, who was a carrier fighter pilot before he retired, said that on a large aircraft carrier it's common for one or two people to get killed in deck accidents a week. People step over the lines painted on the deck and end up getting sucked into jet engines or getting cut in half by catapults or walking into a rotor blade--and that's not even counting accidents in which equipment malfunctions or aircraft crash.

Interestingly, none of those jobs even make the top 10 list of most dangerous jobs compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to its accident and injury reports, the most dangerous job in the US is "fisherman." Commercial fishermen are killed on the job more than three times more often than people in the second most dangerous job, which is "logger."

The top 10 list is:

Fisherman: 200 deaths per 100,000 workers per year.
Loggers: 61 deaths per 100,000 workers per year.
Airplane pilots: 57 deaths per 100,000 workers per year.
Ranchers: 38 deaths per 100,000 workers per year.
Roofers and roofing contractors: 35 deaths per 100,000 workers per year.
Iron and steel workers: 25 deaths per 100,000 workers per year.
Recyclable materials collectors: 25 deaths per 100,000 workers per year.
Industrial machinery installers and maintenance workers: 18 deaths per 100,000 workers per year.
Truck drivers: 18 deaths per 100,000 workers per year.
Construction workers: 18 deaths per 100,000 workers per year.


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Re: Los 33
tacit #12444 10/15/10 06:12 PM
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Your welder friend also has a job I couldn't get paid enough to do. Same reason. The job is not only dangerous but, if something happens, the chances of surviving are slim. I've always thought that if I had to be in the military there are two corps I would never join - tanks and submarines.

Your list of dangerous jobs is interesting but I wonder what we'd see if we looked a layer or two down in the stats. For example, Airplane Pilots are 57 per 100K. Given there are thousands of death-free flights daily with airlines, the airline pilot number must be very low. Is there another group that skews the number?

I think about crop-dusting where the pilots are flying very low, in the vicinity of all manner of obstacles from trees to hydro lines, and probably have to look rearward a fair amount to see what they've done. Would their number be much higher than 57?

I also wonder about jobs that have inherent dangers but where the deaths as less about the dangers than about people ignoring them. The Roofers might be a good example. I've driven past plenty of sites where the roofers are walking around without wearing the safety harnesses designed to prevent fatal accidents.

From personal experience, managing television operations, some of the most dangerous areas were the set-building shops and yet employees would disregard safety. Specially vented areas were provided for certain kinds of glues and finishes and yet people would do the work at their benches. Steel-toed boots were provided and they would work in running shoes. Disciplinary action had to be used to force compliance with safety standards.

On the aircraft carrier, where life is fraught with danger, why would someone go over a line that essentially says: "If you cross me, there's a pretty good chance you will die." Is it bravado? It's a very different situation from the bathyscaphe where a seal blowing out is a true and unpredictable accident in spite of, I'm sure, strict adherence to stringent safety checks.

In the midst of all the data are the cases where workers are killed because they were forced to work in unsafe conditions to improve a company's bottom line. I wonder how much the figures would improve if more company owners or CEOs went to jail?

ryck

Last edited by ryck; 10/15/10 06:26 PM. Reason: Spelling

ryck

"What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits" The Doobie Brothers

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Re: Los 33
ryck #12483 10/18/10 01:25 AM
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Quote:
On the aircraft carrier, where life is fraught with danger, why would someone go over a line that essentially says: "If you cross me, there's a pretty good chance you will die."


.....fatigue or distraction.....or inexperience.

To work on the "roof" during flight ops was to participate in one of the most finely choreographed dances ever performed.....turning props/rotors, jet intakes and tailpipes, high-speed heavy aircraft landing and catching the cross-deck pendant to be jerked to a safe stop in a very short distance (every 30 to 45 seconds), aircraft in full afterburner getting catapulted from a standing start to over 160 MPH in less than four seconds --- all occurring simultaneously in all weather conditions. However, the mishap rate quoted above is somewhat inflated.....I've gone for several six-month carrier deployments without suffering ANY losses. We've come a mighty long way from the old days.



Freedom is never free....thank a Service member today.
Re: Los 33
MacManiac #12490 10/18/10 01:31 PM
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ryck Offline OP
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Originally Posted By: MacManiac
To work on the "roof" during flight ops was to participate in one of the most finely choreographed dances ever performed.....

First, I tip my hat to you not only for having taking on such a perilous role but also for having done it a few times.

Originally Posted By: MacManiac
I've gone for several six-month carrier deployments without suffering ANY losses. We've come a mighty long way from the old days.

Although this thread started with a specific mine incident, it's probably better that it reflects a wider issue of workplace safety in general. It's always terrible to hear about accidents where inattention to safety standards caused injury or loss of life.

Your description of what happens on an aircraft carrier, and the fact that losses are reduced from what they once were, demonstrates that "It can be done". The difference is motivation. There aren't any officers thinking "If I reduce expenses on safety measures my bank account will be fatter."


ryck

Last edited by ryck; 10/18/10 01:33 PM.

ryck

"What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits" The Doobie Brothers

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