
Lumberjack: America's Deadliest Profession - ryan_j_naughton
http://priceonomics.com/how-the-lumberjack-became-such-a-deadly-profession/
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Zak
I grew up in rural Alaska. My environment was full of dangerous things, and I
learned how to use many of them at an early age. I learned to operate boats,
snowmobiles and four wheelers when I was 5, and was allowed to operate them
unsupervised as soon as I had the physical strength to operate all the
essential controls unsupervised. My parents gave me a rifle for my fifth
birthday.

The one thing my parents wouldn't let me use for the longest time was a
chainsaw.

~~~
Avshalom
Also Alaskan.

And yeah come to think of it I got way more safety lectures about the chainsaw
that I wasn't allowed to use than any of the guns or vehicles I was allowed to
use.

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jacquesm
If you mix alcohol, chainsaws, macho and sometimes messy scenery you get a ton
of accidents, and that's besides the inherent risks in felling trees. I've had
some people logging on our property in Canada and witnessed first hand how
easily accidents can happen, nobody actually got hurt or killed but the number
of near misses (ok, near hits) over a fairly short period of time was
absolutely incredible and this was a fairly experienced crew.

One guy nearly got decapitated because a tree got stuck behind a stump while
skidding the logs out, another nearly got killed by a 'widow maker' (I guess
they're called that for a reason). People would 'drop start' their chainsaws
even though that's an absolute no-no and so on. If you ran a machine shop like
that it would probably pay off to have it located next door to a hospital or a
morgue.

Loggers using more modern equipment (tree harvesters) are likely better off
and at a much reduced risk.

~~~
fredkbloggs
Not sure about Canada, but in the US it's generally very easy to buy a
chainsaw and hire yourself out as a "logging company". There are plenty of
father-son teams who hit a rough patch in the labor market and go off and do
exactly that. Not everyone who does so is properly equipped or knows how to
use the equipment safely, and most are familiar with only a limited subset of
the techniques required to do a job correctly. Many are desperate and will
take on jobs they cannot do safely (or with the results the landowner wants!).

Harvesters are great but they are not necessary to do a safe, neat, and
professional logging job, nor are they appropriate to every job. The conduct
you describe and the fact that you mentioned alcohol and macho behavior are
strong evidence that the crew you hired, however experienced, is not competent
and has no business logging. Logging will always be dangerous work regardless
of the equipment used, but there's no excuse for adding to the danger through
amateurish and foolish practices.

A professional logging company will employ loggers who work as safely as
possible, equip them with the right tools, and ensure they are properly
trained in correct procedures and the use of those tools. Those things cost
money, and the low barriers to entry and limited employment opportunities in
many forested areas mean there is always plenty of cheap competition.
Landowners don't have much incentive to seek out more safety-conscious logging
companies. Even if a landowner has a bad experience with one company, it is
usually many years before they hire loggers again, making it difficult to
punish a sloppy or unsafe company by taking the business elsewhere. So
accidents tend to put a small-scale, unprofessional logger out of business
before the market does, and that's a significant contributor to the accident
rate.

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harkyns_castle
I'm rooting for the trees. Here in Tasmania we're seeing some ancient trees
being turned into woodchips because it makes short-term sense for greedy
politicians and people with an IQ thinner than said trees. "What will I do
when I can't hack trees down?! Oh no!"

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kozak
So, being a taxi driver is almost twice more dangerous than being a police
officer?

~~~
Avshalom
The rate of traffic accidents in this country mean that any job in which
you're expected to be driving all hours of the day/night are likely to be
dangerous (also notice how truck drivers are ridiculously high too)

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Shivetya
I wonder if any of this is caused by the higher testosterone level lumberjacks
have? Perhaps it raises the inherent bravado level that judgment is impaired?
[1]

I am a bit shocked that pilots are ranked so high on the fatality list.
Perhaps its helicopter and similar listed? Is that only professional pilots?

anecdotal, many years ago parents had a large number of pines removed from
their property. a young man was killed when he ran under a falling tree. he
was running to get his hat he left on the stump of a previous tree, no one
could understand why he did it, they all stand in a clear area when a tree
comes down. I am not sure what was more surprising, the OSHA guy's "seen it
before" attitude or the loggers parents "we always knew it would happen".

[1] [http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/08/26/chopping-wood-a-
manlier-...](http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/08/26/chopping-wood-a-manlier-feel-
than-sports/)

~~~
mason55
> _I am a bit shocked that pilots are ranked so high on the fatality list.
> Perhaps its helicopter and similar listed? Is that only professional
> pilots?_

It's due to pilots of smaller aircraft and, yes, possibly helicopters.
Helicopter logging is extraordinarily dangerous as is bush piloting in places
like Alaska. There are enough deaths there to way offset the safety of your
jumbo jet commercial pilots.

~~~
omegaham
This. Single-engine plane flying around in rough terrain? Hope you don't have
a mechanical failure, as you're in for a bad time if you do.

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comrade1
That's an impressive picture, but the 'lumberjacks' that I've seen lately by
our cabin in WI are two guys with a giant robot-like machine that grabs onto
the tree, cuts all of the branches off, cuts it into separate sections from
the top down, and stacks them for the trucks to come and pick them up.

I don't know what their rate of clear-cutting is, but they seem to clear out
about a city block size in a week.

Something like:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzaXMzYFtSM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzaXMzYFtSM)

except the ones I've seen don't walk.

So I would expect the numbers to get better going forward.

~~~
unwind
I believe the equipment you're seeing is just ordinary forestry harvesters
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvester_%28forestry%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvester_%28forestry%29))
then. They're typically wheeled or tracked.

Not sure if having legs is much of an advantage, although it sure looks cool.
One big thing about this kind of equipment is controlling ground pressure. I
guess the feet of a legged robot can have larger surface area (and thus lower
pressure) than the contact surfaces of a wheeled vehicle so that might be an
advantage.

~~~
Someone
It probably also helps if you want to do selective harvesting (take out x% of
a forest, keeping the younger trees or specific species alone)

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zimbatm
TIL; Garbageman is more dangerous than being a Fire Fighter.

~~~
k__
Why?

They run around and move dustbins.

~~~
exDM69
And then use giant machines to crush, pack, transport and store the waste.
When you see them "run around and move dustbins", it's probably the easiest
and safest part of their job. What you don't see is what happens at the
landfill or incinerator plant, and this is a bigger part of the job than
collecting waste from domestic customers.

~~~
ptaipale
Actually, getting crushed by the waste truck is probably still a major risk.
When you run around and move dustbins, and this running around is done near a
truck that is constantly starting and stopping movement, people sometimes end
up in a wrong place.

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cafard
One thing that strikes me looking at the numbers is that the there seem to be
about 80 deaths per year, giving us about 90 thousand lumberjacks. A dozen
fewer deaths in 2013 would have brought their rate down a lot closer to
fishermen.

[Edit: changed 110 thousand to 90 thousand--it's early here.]

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jconn
Tough to look at stats like these. A great reminder how lucky most of us on HN
are to earn a living behind a keyboard.

Was anyone else surprised that employment in the military isn't on this list?

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Only because that's not a job that the BLS collects data on. Later on in the
article it's mentioned that being in active duty military is slightly less
dangerous than logging, though more dangerous than any of the other jobs.

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nic0dmus
They should grow hemp instead

