ACCIDENTS Around 430 000 people work in agriculture, which includes farming and use of the countryside. This is less than 1.5% of the working population, yet agriculture has one of the highest fatality rates of all industries and is responsible for between 15% and 20% of all deaths to workers in Great Britain each year. The total annual cost of injuries (in farming, forestry and horticulture) to society is estimated at £190 million and nearly all of that is the result of what the HSE calls ‘reportable injuries’. Of this sum, fatalities account for around a third at £55 million. The most common causes of death are: >> transport – being struck by moving vehicles >> being struck by a moving or falling object (eg. bales, trees etc) >> falls from a height >> asphyxiation or drowning >> contact with machinery >> injury by an animal >> being trapped by something collapsing or overturning >> contact with electricity, nearly two-thirds of which involve overhead power lines.
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