Average US annual per 100,000 deaths:
- 27.5 for oil & gas industry
- 3.9 all workers
And many of the accidents go unreported.
WATCH: “It’s the Wild F*ing West Out There” There is a video at this link and also a print article.
In the rush to frack, workers get hit, squeezed, maimed—and pushed to keep quiet.
Remember, industry wants to lower the bar so we don’t expect so much dang safety.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Another one of those “so ultra safe, you will want to live next one” gas production compressors exploded and burned again:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865567222/Explosion-fire-reported-at-Carbon-County-gas-plant.html
Note that the 2 workers who happened to be there were burned. I see gas compressor explosions in the news every few weeks, much more than EID wants to admit.
Those statistics for worker injuries are under reported, for sure. Rig workers should not get too loyal to their employer, for they will will still get laid off when times are tough, but have to live with injuries they didn’t report.
Are you keeping count?
Keeping track is a problem, since gas gathering facilities, including gas compressors on gathering pipelines, are state “regulated”, meaning no regulation in some states, so, they don’t have to file PHMSA reports. Finding gas gathering system accident then boils down to hunting through newspapers, and hoping they get reported.
It was shocking that this facility was out of cell phone range, and there was no hard line telephone there. I suspect their truck was destroyed, along with any company 2 way radio it had, since they had to flag down a passerby (an hour after the explosion!) to get medical help.
PA: Natural gas dehydration station draws emergency crews
http://www.timesleader.com/stories/Natural-gas-dehydration-station-draws-emergency-crews,232924
“There was a similar issue with this site back in September.”