Injuries by industry

- This course is about slips, trips, and falls from the same level, as opposed to falls from heights. Now there are some industries were falling from heights is a major concern and we spend a significant amount of time training and planning to make those industries safer. Construction's a good example. What always surprises people, though, is that slips, trips, and falls from the same level, like off a one-meter stepladder or stool, affect every industry and they cause serious injuries to people both at home and at work, even those with desk jobs. Now I'm not going to bore you with an hour of statistics, because I really want you to keep watching, but I do want to throw out one set of numbers that shows injuries by industry so you get an understanding of how serious this is for everyone. Now I'm based in the United States, so I'm going to use some statistics from the National Safety Council, a non-governmental organization based in the U.S. Now for a recent year in which they compiled the statistics, here's what they report. Now these are numbers for all types of slip, trips, and fall injuries and fatalities, including falls from heights during a single year. And I want you to see some of these numbers in industries that I think you'll find surprising. So we'll start with construction. It has the highest number of fatal falls, at 384, and they have 24,700 injuries. Manufacturing clocks in at 49 deaths and 22,040 injuries. Wholesale trade is much lower, at 21 deaths and only 10,250 injuries. But retail trade, like grocery stores and shopping malls, that's 29,830 injuries and 29 deaths. Now transportation and warehousing, which is a bit of a broad category, had 23,490 injuries and 46 deaths. But here's where I think it starts to get a little surprising. Professional and business services racked up 22,090 injuries and 111 deaths. Education and health services reported 43,660 injuries and 18 fatalities. So professional, business, education, and health services add up to 65,750 injuries for falls, significantly more than construction and manufacturing combined. And these are industries where people don't really work up at heights. Then there's the last category, which is labeled government, and that alone comes in at 63,350 injuries and 44 fatalities. I'm not going to pretend to understand or explain that particular category, other than to say government does include many different things and it's a major employer here in the U.S., but that number really is high. And then just for comparison, I also took a look at a white paper published by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, which agrees with these numbers and it states that slips, trips, and falls from less than two meters are the largest cause of accidents in all sectors, from heavy manufacturing through to office work. So focus in for a minute on the injuries. These are all injuries that are severe enough to require medical treatment and/or days off work to recover. They include everything from broken bones to back injuries. They're injuries to eyes and cuts and lacerations due to what the person landed on when they slipped and fell, just about everything you can imagine. If you do some research, most of the insurance companies who pay the claims for many of these injuries will agree that slips, trips, and falls from the same level are a significant source of serious injuries, both at work and at home. In fact, when you add injuries due to falls at home to the work-related numbers, the National Safety Council reports that 9.2 million people were treated in the emergency room in the U.S. for fall-related injuries in a single year. Many of these injuries could be avoided with better awareness, training, and planning, no matter what industry you're in.