Throughout the world some workers navigate deadly work environments just to bring home a steady income. These workers must follow strict safety training and protocol in order to stay alive. The following is a compilation of the ten deadliest jobs. The ranking is based on deaths per hundred thousand, ordered from greatest danger to least.
4. Loggers work with sharp-edged hand
tools, and chainsaws in an environment of
heavy machinery, overhead hoisting systems,
and massive pieces of falling timber,
sometimes at life-threatening heights.
59
TOTAL
DEATHS
IN 2013 91.3DEATH
RATE*
AVERAGE MEDIAN SALARY:
$33,630
43,900
NUMBER OF JOBS
LOGGERS
Be careful Extreme hazard
5. A fisherman’s work environment is wet, sometimes
icy and always located on a steel vessel constantly
being tossed about by ocean forces. The implements
of their job involve ropes, gaff hooks, heavily loaded
baskets, nets swinging from cranes, and despair.
27
TOTAL DEATHS IN 2013
Be careful Extreme hazard
AVERAGE MEDIAN SALARY:
$33,430
31,300
NUMBER OF JOBS
FISHERMEN
75DEATH
RATE*
6. Air travel may be statistically the safest mode of
travel, but when things go wrong aboard an aircraft,
they go all the way wrong. High velocities and
altitudes that can be measured in miles make the
prospect of surviving an aerial mishap very slim.
63
TOTAL
DEATHS
IN 2013
aircraft
pilots
50.6
AVERAGE MEDIAN SALARY:
$98,410
104,100
NUMBER OF JOBS
DEATH
RATE*
Be careful Extreme hazard
7. Imagine you’re an office worker except that your workstation
sits atop the uneven terrain of a roof with unguarded edges.
Suddenly that safety harness and those special boots seem
like a really good idea, even though they don’t help with the
filing of all those TPS reports. Right? And then it rains ...
69
TOTAL
DEATHS
IN 2013
ROOFERS
38.7
AVERAGE MEDIAN SALARY:
$35,290 132,700
NUMBER OF JOBS
DEATH
RATE*
Be careful Extreme hazard
8. The type of waste they collect may not stink, but their job
safety statistics do. Clinging to the business end of a giant
hydraulic compactor truck with poor driver’s rear-view visibility
through traffic between one stop and the next, probably loses
its nostalgic similarity to fire engines pretty quick.
33
TOTAL
DEATHS
IN 2013
recyclable
material
collectors
33
AVERAGE MEDIAN SALARY:
$32,720
116,460
NUMBER OF JOBS
DEATH
RATE*
Be careful Extreme hazard
9. The kind of equipment powerful enough to bore massive holes in
the earth, and haul hundreds of metric tons of material in single
loads seems dangerous enough. But for mining machine operators
there’s the hole itself, and the explosives, and the pockets of
toxic gas, and tremors, and cave-ins … yadda, yadda, yadda,
it’s real dangerous.
16
TOTAL
DEATHS
IN 2013
MINING MACHINE
OPERATORS
26.9
AVERAGE MEDIAN SALARY:
$50,820
12,180
NUMBER OF JOBS
DEATH
RATE*
Be careful Extreme hazard
10. We’re talking long-haul truckers, which means long days on the
highway at all hours, in all kinds of traffic and weather conditions.
Navigating 18 wheels and several tons of cargo through a sea of
angsty clerks, accountants, and soccer moms, is by no means a
safe working environment.
748
TOTAL
DEATHS
IN 2013
TRUCK DRIVERS
22
AVERAGE MEDIAN SALARY:
$38,700 1,585,300
NUMBER OF JOBS
DEATH
RATE*
Be careful Extreme hazard
11. That old adage about getting back up on your horse after you’ve
fallen only stands if you still do after making abrupt contact with
the dirt. Then there’s the potential trampling, the tractor, or
combine bearing down. Farmers and ranchers know the land. They
also know that sometimes when the land comes up to meet you, it
isn’t to say hi. It’s to say goodbye.
220
TOTAL
DEATHS
IN 2013
FARMERS
& RANCHERS
21.8
AVERAGE MEDIAN SALARY:
$69,300 930,600
NUMBER OF JOBS
DEATH
RATE*
Be careful Extreme hazard
12. Linemen rely on the quality of their emergency cable system
in order to stay alive. Their job is to erect, and maintain power
lines, sometimes hundreds of feet above the ground. From the
deaths caused by electrocution to the deaths that result of a
faulty fall arrest cable system, lineman workers have one of
the deadliest jobs on earth
27
TOTAL
DEATHS
IN 2013
Electrical
powerline
Workers
21.5
AVERAGE MEDIAN SALARY:
$64,170 111,350
NUMBER OF JOBS
DEATH
RATE*
Be careful Extreme hazard
13. Some cling to steel columns and beams hundreds of feet in the air,
while others remain on the ground amongst the heavy machinery.
There is danger in either case. Every year, hundreds of men and
women die in construction accidents. From power tools to falling
beams to extreme heights and too many hours, working in
construction is an inherently dangerous job.
215
TOTAL
DEATHS
IN 2013
Construction
workers
17.7
AVERAGE MEDIAN SALARY:
$30,460 824,970
NUMBER OF JOBS
DEATH
RATE*
Be careful Extreme hazard
* Death rate is per 100,000 workers
14. R
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Sources:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryndill/2014/09/25/americas-10-deadliest-jobs/