Report Blames Safety Lapses for an Epidemic of Deaths at Wyoming Job Sites

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/us/report-blames-safety-lapses-for-deaths-at-wyoming-job-sites.html?_r=2&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

By DAN FROSCH
Published: January 12, 2012

DENVER — C. J. Moss was on the final day of his weeklong shift working in Wyoming’s oil fields when he died. A burnt cable electrocuted Mr. Moss, 26, while he was cleaning part of a motor for a drilling rig, killing him instantly.


Natalie and C. J. Moss as newlyweds.


In a state with fewer than 600,000 residents, accidental deaths like Mr. Moss’s, which occurred in February 2007 and has led to a lawsuit over who was responsible, have become disquietingly common. Wyoming, with its growing oil, gas and mining industries, is one of the most dangerous places in the United States to work.

A report compiled by an epidemiologist hired by the state and released on Jan. 3, found that Wyoming’s work sites lacked what it called a culture of safety and that proper safety procedures were not followed in the vast majority of cases when someone was killed on the job.

The report also noted that Wyoming had the highest workplace fatality rate in the country for all but one year from 2003 through 2008. In 2010, the last year that data was provided, Wyoming’s estimated occupational death rate was three and a half times the national average, the report said.

“Safety occurs as an afterthought,” wrote Dr. Timothy Ryan, who was hired to study the problem by Dave Freudenthal, who was then the governor.

FULL story at link.