Weekly Fatalities

It's sad that they can actually report this by week. The U.S. Department of Labor has a Weekly Reports of Fatalities, Catastrophes, and Other Events. I wish there was a note as to which ones were fatalities. Especially since a few of the entries read:

• Victim was cleaning out a pit at a grain elevator. He was walking near the unguarded opening and fell through, 15-20 feet, to the bottom of the pit. - now this I assume is a fatality
• Victim fell from a 3-step ladder. -- how is this on the list at all, unless it was a fatality?

There is a note: There are 26 OSHA State Plan States. Since there is no reporting requirement, a number of states have elected not to report their fatalities to OSHA. .

How much is too much?

A colleague mentioned yesterday that his new boss, the new Safety VP, who is also an industrial hygenist, was displeased by the 7 entries on the OSHA log to date (1/1-7/8). For a manufacturing facility of over 4,000 people in 600,000 sq. ft. Yes, anything could be worse. "The fatality rate is currently 183.6 deaths per 100,000 workers: Five tower workers died during one 12-day span earlier this year alone. 18 tower workers died on the job in 2006." Statistics check: if the death rate is 184/100,000 , how is it that 18 died in one year? Does that mean there are really only 9804 employees in the whole country? Media just spew forth numbers that look cool, or inflamatory.