quote:

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The 18-year-old firefighter who died in a fire in western Quebec Sunday afternoon was not properly trained, according to an official with the union that represents firefighters in the province.

André Manseau was killed when the roof of a fire-weakened garage fell on him in Val-des-Monts, about 30 kilometres north of Ottawa.

He had been working with the Val-des-Monts fire department for six months. [...]

Val-des-Monts fire Chief Benoit Gagnon said Manseau had started his training, but hadn't finished it.

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The traumatic fatality rate for firefighters is 16.6 per 100,000 employed workers (US Department of Labor 2006 data). That's over ten times the rate for most office workers, and it's comparable to the rate for police. There are also some statistics I have heard that say up to 70% of firefighters pay for their jobs with their lives through diseases like cancer. Most of the time the occupational connection is not officially acknowledged.

The risk of dying on the job is not isolated to firefighting and police work. The fatality rate for truckers is 26.5 per 100,000. Farmers die at a rate of 37.1 per 100,000. The rate for roofers is 33.9, electrical lineworkers 34.9, garbage collectors 41.8, structural steelworkers 61, loggers 82.1, aircraft pilots 87.8 and "fishers and related fishing workers" die at a rate of 141.7 per 100,000 workers.

Rates for military occupations are not provided.

www.bls.gov

[ 12 March 2008: Message edited by: triciamarie ]

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Originally posted by triciamarie:
The risk of dying on the job is not isolated to firefighting and police work.

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So true.

This 1MB pdf document shows many Canadian stats from 1996-2005. Page 97 has a table showing occupational deaths per 100,000 of various sectors. Unfortunately, fire fighters aren't separated out from "government services".

The leading sectors (averaged over the 10 years) and the number of deaths per 100,000 were:

Mining, quarrying and oil wells: 49.9
Logging and forestry: 42.6
Fishing and trapping: 35.6
Agriculture: 28.1
Construction industries: 20.6
Transportation and storage: 14.7
Manufacturing: 8.6
Government Services: 6.1

And so on.

But in opening this thread, I really wanted to focus on the apparent tragedy of an 18-year-old, who (according to the fire chief) had not completed his mandatory 275 hours of training, could end up in this situation. The investigation will focus on the training, the incident itself, and the level of supervision.

Don't count on it. It's the price of (doing) business. [/end rant]

quote:

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
On average, three or four Canadians are killed on the job every day. Perhaps if a Canadian flag was wrapped around their casket, governments would take notice?

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But I question whether this kind of review is really effective in preventing other workplace fatalities.

Construction labourers die on the job quite regularly, often (about a third) in multi-storey falls. Many of them are very young and with little to zero training. Investigations occur, charges are levied, fines are paid -- or not. And every second construction site I pass by on the street, I notice blatently inadequate safety precautions.

There are two things that I think would prevent these tragedies on construction sites: one, stepped-up site visits by specialized labour inspectors charged with the mandate to shut down unsafe projects; and two, internal organization on health and safety along with job security in the building trades.