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SOUTHERN STUMPIN’ By David Abbott • Managing Editor • Ph. 334-834-1170 • Fax: 334-834-4525 • E-mail: david@hattonbrown.com
When First Is Worst I
come from Alabama, so I know a thing or two about being number one…I know, I know, I’m sounding like THAT fan, but bear with me a minute. Alabama (this applies to the college football team, the country music band, and the state) has been #1, or close to it, their fair share of times…but not always in good ways. In music, Alabama the band has had a lot of #1 hits and other top 10 songs, gold records, and industry accolades. In sports, the University of Alabama’s various athletics programs, but particularly its football team, have won a few championships, and come close to winning more, both in the old days under the iconic Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant and more recently under the new GOAT, Nick Saban. And, of course, we do have another major college, Auburn University, which has also done quite well more often than not, including playing in, and winning, some SEC Championship and BCS national title games in the last decade or so. There was a stretch of a few years there, from 2009-2012, when the college football national championship winner every one of those years was either Alabama or Auburn, and Auburn was in the national championship game again in 2013, nearly extending the streak to five consecutive years. I have no doubt both schools will continue to see success. So, that’s when it’s good to be #1. But in a lot of other categories, Alabama as a state has unfortunately often come in #1, or close to it, where we don’t want to be. In the minus column for our state: arguably, just about everything else besides sports and music. Yep, football aside, we’re used to being #1, or close to it, in a lot of other categories, relative to population size: obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, infant mortality, violent crime, adult illiteracy, divorce, adultery, drug addiction, poverty; and often near to dead last (or first worst) in things like high school and college graduation rates, life expectancy, median income. In too many categories, we find ourselves at the top of the bad lists and the bottom of the good lists. A few years ago I read that the city of Montgomery can lay claim to having more STDs per capita than any other town in the U.S. That’s when being #1 is not so good! And I don’t mean to be so hard on my home state; I’m just using those broad negative stats to make a point. There are plenty of good things here too, besides football: beautiful countryside, hunting and fishing, beautiful beaches, some mighty fine logging, and plenty of really nice people. We also tend to have lower unemploy-
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ment rates, lower property taxes, and a generally lower cost of living that offsets the generally lower income levels quite a bit, so that in many places the actual quality of life, to the extent it can be measured objectively, is higher than the raw data might suggest.
Danger Zone Logging is also #1 in a lot of ways—hey it’s #1 in our hearts, for sure. It’s a fine and honorable profession, one that performs a necessary service to society and the economy, and it’s filled with some of the best people you’ll ever meet. It’s generally unappreciated by much of the society that benefits from its labors. And it also consistently ranks as #1—on the list of the most dangerous jobs in America. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, there were 5,250 fatal work injuries across all sectors—all industries combined—in 2018. That number increased by 2% to 5,333 in 2019. The national average, among all industries, is about 3.5 workrelated deaths per 100,000 workers. According to a June 3, 2020 article in Business Insider, logging has a fatality rate of 97.6 jobcaused deaths per 100,000 workers. That is almost 28 times higher than the overall rate for all jobs combined. The second most dangerous job, professional fishing, apparently has 77.4 deaths per 100,000, so logging has a pretty big lead (20 more fatalities per 100,000). I found this very surprising; I very rarely hear about loggers dying in the woods. Many other jobs you might intuitively think of as being more dangerous are, statistically, not. Mining, for instance: 11 deaths per 100,000. Law enforcement: we all love our heroes and know they have a dangerous job, but it turns out that “police officer” (local, state and federal combined) ranks as the 16th most dangerous job in America, at 13.7 deaths per 100,000. How about firefighters? That’s gotta be one of the most dangerous jobs, right? I would have thought so. Well I didn’t see that on the Business Insider list…maybe I overlooked it or maybe they included it under EMT/rescue workers, it wasn’t clear…so I looked up some numbers from the U.S. Fire Administration and FEMA. In 2019, there were 62 on-duty firefighter deaths in the U.S., out of 1,115,000 firefighters (33% career and 67% volunteer). That’s the lowest
annual number since USFA started keeping track, and thank God for that. It’s a fatality rate of 5.56 deaths per 100,000…well below logging’s 97.6, assuming that figure is accurate. Farming and ranching comes in at #7 with 24.7 deaths per 100,000; truck driving at #6 with 26 deaths per 100K. And there are several other things on the list, compiled from Labor Bureau and OSHA statistics: electrician, roofer, pilot. A logger is more likely to die on the job than any of them. Heck, about the only thing deadlier than logging is COVID-19 (164 deaths per 100,000). And that’s not even counting non-fatal injuries. With luck, you could just be maimed or crippled. If memory serves, I believe I remember reading at one time, a couple of years ago, that the fishing industry briefly overtook logging as the most dangerous job one year, but logging reclaimed the crown the very next year and has, I think, held it since. So, yeah, it’s not always so great to be #1.
Improvements On the other hand, I came across this in a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) report from 1995: “The National Traumatic Occupational Fatalities (NTOF) Surveillance System indicates that during the period 1980-89, nearly 6,400 U.S. workers died each year from traumatic injuries suffered in the workplace [NIOSH 1993a]. Over this 10-year period, an estimated 1,492 of these deaths occurred in the logging industry, where the average annual fatality rate is more than 23 times that for all U.S. workers (164 deaths per 100,000 workers compared with 7 per 100,000).” So, both the overall numbers and the logging numbers were much higher 30-40 years ago. The absolute number of deaths overall was about 1,200 more per year (for everything combined) back then, and the rate was double what it is now. The logging fatality rate has come down by about 40%, from 164 deaths per 100K in the ’80s to about 98 in 2019. No doubt that’s due to a lot of factors. Logging has definitely become safer—more mechanized, fewer men on the ground, more use of safety equipment and greater awareness and education about risks— but it’s still dangerous work, so you guys be careful out there. Turns out you might be the toughest and bravest men (and women) in America. Now that part doesn’t surprise me at all. SLT
JUNE 2021 l Southern Loggin’ Times
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