Why Do Federal Airport Screeners Have the Highest Injury Rates?

[JasonRox]

Or maybe the screeners are just a bunch of whiners who realize they can exploit the system that employs them, particularly since there are no so many rules now that make it difficult for them to be fired.

- Warren

It's true. I have friends who work for airports and all they do is their homework.

One time my buddy never showed up for class for like 3 weeks (works full-time) and then he came back ahead of everyone!

 

[WarPhalange]

My brother was picking up a 5 ton coil of steel

See, that's why they tell you to bend your legs when you lift heavy things.

 

[Math Is Hard]

PF Moderator?

Maybe the banned crackpots are beating her up?

 

[Andre]

<serious on>

Eimacman, of the roughly 200 colleague jet pilots, I knew personally, I saw more than a dozen die on the job during my carreer, five of them were friends. You'd have lunch together one moment and see them go off for an afternoon trip, never to return home again.

Anyway the last one of those five was in 1992, (the first in 1979) after that safety records improved miraculously and fatal accidents decreased spectacularly for some reason. We had only two more fatalities in total in the RNLAF after that year, while we had 2-5 every year before that.

</serious off> So let's party.

 

[Andre]

Let me elaborate on one of them, a student of mine. At a certain point in my flying instructeur carreer I was usually assigned the most difficult cases, the weakest students. So this guy had problems in tactical formation flying on the inside of the turn to maintain level flight, which is awkward but highly necesary. Instead he used to descend to keep the lead air plane better visual, a distinct no-no in tactical low level flights.

So we had some real tough exercises but he made good progress and in the end I was confident that he 'got' it now and that he was safe to proceed. Others confirmed that, as the trainer and examiner are never the same.

About one year later he died in a crash, due to making exactly that same mistake again. That's something to get very unhappy about.

 

[turbo]

Given the medical histories of my co-workers, my time as a chemist in a pulp mill may have been pretty hazardous. The Kraft process uses alkaline chemicals (called white liquor), pressure, high temperature, etc to break wood chips down into fiber. In the process of dissolving the connective tissue, LOTS of complex organic compounds are produced, about which little is known. The extracted liquor (now called black liquor) is concentrated and is burned in chemical recovery boilers, and the resultant slag is dissolved in tanks, and the slurry (now called green liquor) is pumped back to another section of the mill to be re-calcined. All through this process (until combustion in the boiler) people get exposed to the complex organic by-products of the digestion process. There are many other chemicals used in pulp mills and paper mills too. My concern is that former co-workers a developing cancers at a pretty scary rate. Lung cancers are common as are pancreatic cancers. My former boss (and good friend) the Technical Director of the mill died of lung cancer, the Asst. Superintendent of the pulp mill lost a lung to cancer and survived for a few more years until it came back and spread, and a nice lady in her late 40s that worked on my shift in the paper mill just found out that she has inoperable lung cancer. Another fellow who worked on my shift on the paper machine has a pretty nasty form of pancreatic cancer. It seems like otherwise-healthy people who have worked in this mill are getting cancer at a much higher rate that I see in the general population.

 

[LowlyPion]

In this regard, long term environmental risks, you may want to consider the clean-up workers at Chernobyl.

 

[Eimacman]

Andre

Although being a pilot, and I am assuming that you are talking about fighter pilot during war time, is a dangerous occupation. How ever that would not be as dangerous as mining mercury in that you stand a better than 40% probability of dieing the first day and that increases with time to the point that for the average lifetime of being this kind of miner, and such lifetimes are very short, you stand better than a 90% chance of your occupation killing you. If this were true for flying, and I am not saying it is, out of your 200 over 100 would die from flying in the first year and every year, and this is a conservative estimate. And as some one else mentioned, the workers that shoveled boron on top of the still burning reactor at Chernobyl had the most dangerous job ever, in that 100% of them died, all of them. Apply this to aviation and you would be taking your life in your hands by just looking at an aircraft. There are hundreds of technicians whose purpose is to eliminate as much risk as possible out of flying, and pilots receive the best training with the most experienced trainers and instructors, using the best equipment available. Mercury miners on the other hand are given little or no training, in fact if they new the danger they would not do it, given little safety equipment, and are exposed to thousands of times the maximum safe limit for mercury vapor and the very bad biological effects of such exposure. The amount of danger is not the same and thousands of people die due to industrial accidents in the jobs such as this you do not hear about them on the news often.

So:
Fighter pilot, dangerous job;
Mercury miner more dangerous job.

 

[turbo]

Mercury miner more dangerous job.

Do you have trustworthy links? Most heavy metals are pretty benign to the people digging them out of the ground. They are are more dangerous when they are refined and converted into forms that people can more easily ingest and metabolize.

 

[mgb_phys]

Most mercury mines are in countries with less than spotless worker safety records.

Most deep mines in modern countries (with the exception of USA coal mines!) are pretty sae due to an obsessive safety culture.

 

[Eimacman]

Turbo-1

I was just searching for the links that you requested and found that I have made a horrid mistake! I was thinking of the wrong occupation, it is the people that work in the refining process that are exposed to the danger not the miners! I am afraid that I may be suffering from foot-in-mouth disease or brain rot brought about by disuse of gray matter. My sincerest apologizes for such a mistake.

Eimacman

 

[Eimacman]

To make up for my mistake I came up with this simple formula:

total number of deaths caused by the job
______________________________________ = the danger of the job
total number of persons doing the job globally


This is a simplistic formulation that will give one at least a 'ball park' estimation of the danger of any job. I do not know how to put a example of a more accurate formula using statistical analysis here for I don't know how the controls on the reply box work. and I can not cut and paste a complex formula out of my word processor.

Oh WarPhalange I will be more careful with idiomatic expressions in the future.

Eimacman

 

[mgb_phys]

The trouble with that is when the "total number of persons doing the job globally" is small. For a while astronomer was listed as the most dangerous profesion, because although only a few people died on the job there aren't many of them.

 

[turbo]

Turbo-1

I was just searching for the links that you requested and found that I have made a horrid mistake! I was thinking of the wrong occupation, it is the people that work in the refining process that are exposed to the danger not the miners! I am afraid that I may be suffering from foot-in-mouth disease or brain rot brought about by disuse of gray matter. My sincerest apologizes for such a mistake.

Eimacman

You don't need to apologize to me - your clarification of the issue was sufficient. Most heavy metals are not too dangerous to the people mining the ores. Refining them often involves finely dividing them, and using chemical and/or electrical processes to concentrate them and convert them to forms that are usable in industrial processes. That can be dangerous for people working in mills in countries with lax occupational protections.

 

[turbo]

The trouble with that is when the "total number of persons doing the job globally" is small. For a while astronomer was listed as the most dangerous profesion, because although only a few people died on the job there aren't many of them.

What happened? Astronomers falling asleep and falling out of the observer's cage "back in the day"?

 

[tribdog]

I hear suicide bomber is a pretty dangerous job.

 

[Math Is Hard]

I hear suicide bomber is a pretty dangerous job.

 

[Andre]

I hear suicide bomber is a pretty dangerous job.

Now, why would that be? After all, a Suicide bomber is pretty sure of his faith and what many people want most is certainty. Moreover in some religions suicide bombers seem to earn a harem of maidens afterwards.

 

[turbo]

Volcano-virgin is a pretty dangerous job, too. I'm surprised Wolram is still with us.

 

[mgb_phys]

What happened? Astronomers falling asleep and falling out of the observer's cage

A few high altitude and heart attacks.
Mostly high altitude, bad roads and terrible drivers.

 

[Eimacman]

Mgb_phys

What I mean “total number of persons doing the job globally” means that every one in the world that is doing the job at any given time, that is for an astronomer every one engaged in the occupation of watching the stars any where on Earth. And the “total number of deaths caused by the job”, is any fatality that is a direct result of doing the job, for your astronomer that would be if a telescope fell off its gimbals and crushed him or her to death. If the astronomer died as the result of an accident such as an automobile accident wile going to work that would not count in the calculation for it was not a fatality directly caused by the job, nor would slipping on a bar of soap wile taking a shower that might happen at any housing that may be at any given observatory, for such events can happen to anyone anywhere at any given time and are not caused by the act of astronomy. If the astronomer had a heart attack, that would not count either, unless it can be proved that it was a heart attack directly caused by doing the job of being an astronomer. The causality of any fatal event in this case must be limited to events caused by the job directly or any calculation will be in error.


Turbo-1

Yes! You ‘hit the nail on the head’ falling out of the observation cage after falling a sleep would definitely be a event caused by doing the job of astronomer.

On the other thing of metal poisoning, certain oxides of various metals are very poisonous such as beryllium oxide and lead oxide, mercury sulphide is some what toxic, any form of mercury salts that are soluble in water are very poisonous, and certain metallic organics such as tetra ethyl lead.

The latter reminds me of how deep salvage diving can be a very hazardous occupation when 75 55gal drums of Tetra Ethyl Lead were salvaged of the coast of Spain back in the 1960's by Jacques Cousteau aboard the Calypso. During one of the dives in which a barrel was being removed, only one drop got on one of the diver’s hands and it nearly killed him. He had to be rushed to the surface and put in a decompression chamber and taken immediately to hospital.

I can see that any occupation containing the word ‘suicide’ would be up there as being the most dangerous job where the outcome of failure would result in life, but I am not sure that a virgin sacrifice to the goddess Pele counts as an occupation.

Eimacman

 

[mgb_phys]

Mgb_phys
If the astronomer died as the result of an accident such as an automobile accident wile going to work that would not count

Depends, if they were only driving a 4x4 down a steep road at 14,000ft in a white-out to get off Mauna Kea it would count!
Deep sea diver in the North sea is regarded as a pretty dangerous job, but in thelast 20years none have been killed diving. Two died on Piper Alpha (the entire rig blew up) and a couple more died in helicopter crashes. Presumably this would count.

My point was that apparently dangerous jobs aren't necessarily that dangerous because extreme safety standards and attitudes that go along with the work. The really dangerous jobs tend to be those like construction where the attitude is more lax.

 

[tribdog]

Now, why would that be? After all, a Suicide bomber is pretty sure of his faith and what many people want most is certainty. Moreover in some religions suicide bombers seem to earn a harem of maidens afterwards.

Yeah, you might get 30 virgins, problem is they are all male.

 

[NeoDevin]

Yeah, you might get 30 virgins

And I thought having one virgin was a lot of bother.

 

[DaveC426913]

...in some religions suicide bombers seem to earn a harem of maidens afterwards.

Common misconception. The harem of virgins are there to aid in the judgement of the person, not to service him.

Slight difference there eh?

 

[tribdog]

Common misconception. The harem of virgins are there to aid in the judgement of the person, not to service him.

Slight difference there eh?

depends on what they are judgeing on.

 

[Eimacman]

Mgb_phys

For the sake of argument I will explain mathematically.

It is assumed that the inherit danger of a job is directly per portional to the sum of the probabilities of fatal events that are directly related to the doing a job.

Therefore: for the set A, in this case our astronomer, a set consisting of elements that are fatal events, and subset D a set containing elements of fatal events that are directly related to doing the job of astronomer as defined by the function above.

Further more for the sake of argument we have two additional sets B and C. Set B will be defined as the set consisting of elements that are fatal events that are related to to a delivery person, and subset E a set containing elements of fatal events that are directly related to doing the job of delivery person. Set C will be defined as the set consisting of elements that are fatal events that are related to a friend of the astronomer.

As you said:
“Depends, if they were only driving a 4x4 down a steep road at 14,000ft in a white-out to get off Mauna Kea it would count!”

This is not true: for the event of “driving a 4x4 down a steep road at 14,000ft in a white-out to get off Mauna Kea” is part of a subset consisting of the intersection of the sets A, B, and C. That is that event could happen to the astronomer, or a delivery person, or the friend of the astronomer that came for a visit. By definition the subset D, defined as the fatal events that are directly related to the job of astronomer, is disjoint; as is the subset E, defined as the fatal events that are directly related to the job of delivery person, (although this one element in the subset E can be, by definition, as being disjoint in relation to sets A and B).

In response to:
“Deep sea diver in the North sea is regarded as a pretty dangerous job, but in the last 20years none have been killed diving. Two died on Piper Alpha (the entire rig blew up) and a couple more died in helicopter crashes. Presumably this would count.

My point was that apparently dangerous jobs aren't necessarily that dangerous because extreme safety standards and attitudes that go along with the work. The really dangerous jobs tend to be those like construction where the attitude is more lax.”


A helicopter crash can happen to anyone any where at any time therefore that element is not disjoint in relation to a fatal event directly brought about by diving. If there were divers of the platform were working under water when the platform ‘went up’ and their breathing gasses were cutoff because of it, and they were killed as a result, then that element event would not be disjoint for it would be directly related.

As to your second statement:
Safety standards and attitudes of the persons involved lessen the probability of fatality, but it will not eliminate it. The danger remains.

Eimacman

 

[Eimacman]

I made an error, the statement should read:

A helicopter crash can happen to anyone any where at any time therefore that element is not disjoint in relation to a fatal event directly brought about by diving. If there were divers of the platform were working under water when the platform ‘went up’ and their breathing gasses were cutoff because of it, and they were killed as a result, then that element event would be disjoint for it would be directly related.

Eimacman

 

[wildman]

I have found that the most dangerous jobs are:

1) Mercury mining
2) Arctic and subarctic fishing
3) Farming
4) EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal)
5) Mining (below ground not strip mining)
6) Metal refining, including furnace lancing, etc
7) Industrial cleanup, including cleaning chemical reactors, heat exchangers etc
8) Deep sea diving ocean salvage
9) Shallow diving depths of less than 100ft
10) High-rise construction worker

And my main definition of 'hazardous' is directly based on the probability that the job in question will kill you if you had such a field of work.

Mercury mining one is constantly exposed to mercury vapor and rock fall.
Any kind of fishing exposes one to extreme weather conditions in which the probability of being rescued can be small to nil.
Farming can be extremely dangerous, I personally know of a farmer getting his arm ripped off, when he fell into a spinning PTO shaft, another fellow had a three quarter ton round bale fall off his front end loader onto him wile he was on his tractor and broke his back, he was on that tractor for ten hours before he was found, I my self suffered three broken ribs when I was trampled.
The main danger of EOD is being blown to pieces if you make a mistake, like removing a 2000lb UXB from a factory.
In mining there is the constant risk of rock fall, coke damp, and poison gas. Now you might be thinking "Neutrino detectors are located in mines how can they be that unsafe?" well that is because they are no longer being worked.
Metal refining exposes a person to lethal chemicals like cyanide and temperatures, and getting hit by a 20lb blob of white hot steel will make a mess out of you.
In industrial cleanup one can be exposed to all kinds of chemicals, and hydrolic cleaner rams can punch a hole through a person like a 90mil at point blank range, and fall risk such a falling in a 200ft tower or down a 500ft utility shaft (safety belts are rarely used).
Diving both shallow and deep exposes one to nitrogen narcosis, decompression sickness, equipment malfunction causing your mixture to being wrong (too much oxygen or helium during deep dives).
High-rise construction presents many hazards such as being crushed, falling, and being impaled on rebar.

And as I stated before I was a farmer for nearly 30 years (had to pay college expenses somehow) and getting your hands and arms occasionally slashed by barbed wire, getting tagged by a horse or cow, slipping and falling face first into a tractor drawbar, being nailed by a 2000lb bull, and having implements drop on ones person; and doing the job in rain, storm, snow, ice, flood, high wind, and blazing summer heat; wile are not common occurrences are rather likely to happen unless one is extremely vigilant and some times it is going to happen like wile running fence and your horse spooks and explodes under you and you are just lucky enough not to fall into the fence, split your skull, break your back, neck, other parts of your anatomy, or worse having 1200 pounds of frightened equine coming down on top of you are things that can just happen without the slightest indication.

Now there are other positions, jobs, and other dangerous jobs that are equally dangerous, such as being a firefighter, or an infantryman during time of war, to name a few but as I said before I believe that the measure of danger in this case is directly proportional to probability of mortality over time. If your a postman or post woman you are not very likely to die of a paper cut, unless it has anthrax on it.

You missed logging. That is dangerous. It would be higher than farmer, me thinks. However, having worked as a firefighter (as well as a logger) in college, I don't think firefighting is all that dangerous. It is actually quite fun. A lot of work, but exciting. I think infantryman in heavy combat is by far the most dangerous job. In World War II, 98% of the infantrymen died or were seriously wounded per year. Pretty bad odds.

 

[Eimacman]

Wildman

You are correct, however logging is considered a type of agriculture in which trees are harvested. Even in the small ranch operation I ran for a time we harvested trees for our own needs. And you are correct in that being an infantryman during time of war is very dangerous, as would be a fire fighter's job.

Eimacman