OSHA Stats - Fatalities

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

This follows up my earlier comments on the "BOOM" thread last week.

From... http://www.osha.gov/oshastats/work.html

"Fatal occupational injuries by event or exposure, 1992-1997 Fatalities"

Fire and explosives: 1992 - 167 1993 - 204 1994 - 202 1995 - 207 1996 - 185 1997* - 196 *Most current year available

Please note that there are MANY other categories (fire & explosion accounted for a mere 3% of total work-related fatalities in 1997), but this seemed the one most applicable to Y2K trend-watchers.

For the six year period (1992-1997), there was a total of 1,161 events, resulting in an average of 193.5 events a year, or 16.125 events per month.

Okay, so now we have hard numbers about fire & explosion related fatalities. Let's be generous to the "norm" and round up to an expectation of 17 fatalities per month. Does this enable us to draw any conclusions about Y2K-related failures? At a glance, I'd say unfortunately it does not. If anything, the number of incidents reported year-to-date seems well below that rate.

HOWEVER... *deep breath*...

1. The lumping together of fire and explosion is probably obscuring a clear read. It could be that outright explosions are much fewre in number.

2. Many fires are only reported locally... explosions, OTOH, being more glamorous and less common, tend to get broader media coverage.

3. OSHA may get a sizeable percentage of paperwork on small fires that are put out on site, without the aid of local fire fighters. Such events might not make the media at all.

This is a completely off-the-cuff impression. Please -- others with experience in hard data analysis -- go for it!

-- M.C. Hicks (mhicks@greenwich.com), June 30, 1999

Answers

@#$%^*&^*damn word processor! Sorry for mish mosh... I put one year per line. Here it is again, with semi-colons...

Fire and explosives: 1992 - 167; 1993 - 204; 1994 - 202; 1995 - 207; 1996 - 185; 1997* - 196

*Most current year available

-- M.C. Hicks (mhicks@greenwich.com), June 30, 1999.


Sorry M.C., I don't have anything to add, but am curious about this myself. BTW, do 'outhouses' count? (still tickled 'bout that one)

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 30, 1999.

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