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CDC: Fatality rate seven times higher for oil & gas workers

The recent death of Brandon Michael Noland, 20, of Katy, Texas by blunt force crushing trauma from a Gulf of Mexico crane collapse is the latest evidence of the dangers of working in the oil and gas industry.

According to a 2008 Center for Disease Control (CDC) report, the fatality rate for workers in this industry was "approximately seven times the rate for all workers" between 2003 and 2006.

This did not include the 11 workers killed in the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which occurred a few years after the study period. Nor did it include injury rates.

Here are some other facts sounding the alarm of perils working men and women face every day on a rig.

From 2006 to 2010 at least 23 people were killed and 29 seriously injured from 10 major rig fires. During that time there were more than 510 total recorded platform fires overall.

Since 2006 the Houston Chronicle found 35 fatal accidents in local records and news reports. According to an attorney cited in the article, accidents on Gulf platforms are underreported.

"There is a big difference between their actual incident/injury rate and their self-reported (rate)," this attorney said. "Often (company officials) deny an injury no matter what the doctors say."

Transocean Ltd, the Houston-based owner of the Deepwater Horizon platform, did not go unscathed in the Chronicle report.

In 2008 and 2009, 19 fires were reported aboard Transocean rigs with four of those fires resulting in workers seriously injured enough to be medivacced. The article stated that "dozens" of cases have been filed against Transocean and interrelated companies in recent years. Many of those cases resulted in undisclosed settlements.

The former Minerals Management Service-now the Bureau of Ocean Energy (BOE)-says that there have been 69 deaths, 1,349 injuries and 858 fires and explosions in the Gulf between 2001 and April, 2010. Between 2006 and 2009 in the Gulf alone, there were 1,298 accidents on platforms and rigs.

Stressful and confusing working environments played a heavy role in Gulf deaths and accidents in recent years, according to numerous BOE accident reports and panel investigations. Even though government rig inspectors warned companies that workers' minimal training foretold an impending safety crisis, the warnings were, by and large, not heeded, the Washington Post reported.

So what are some of the principal causes of offshore workers' fatalities and injuries? They include:

-Long working hours. Working up to 12 hour shifts-sometimes even 14 hours-can lead to mental and physical fatigue which leads to lack of focus and the propensity to make errors.

-Defective equipment .

-There is also what could be called the "trap door" fall. That's when a floor panel is removed, unattended, unprotected and a worker falls through it, sometimes the very person who removed the panel.

-Lack of training.

-Job stress.

-Dangerous weather and sea conditions. In the Gulf of Mexico there is an annual risk of hurricanes while in the North Sea hypothermia and frostbite are lurking.

But many other less obvious risks to rig workers may not be so quick to come to mind. Some of those dangers include back injury, high falls, isolated burns, limbs trapped in machinery and exposure to toxic gases and chemicals.

Learn your rights as a seaman by ordering free copy of The Insider's Guide to Winning Your Maritime Injury Case written by Jones Act and maritime accident injury lawyer Brian Beckcom.

Maritime Work is Dangerous

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