Vehicle-related incidents contributed to more than a quarter of worker deaths in the oil and gas extraction industry over a recent 6-year period, a recently published report shows.
Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) looked at 2014–2019 data from the Fatalities in Oil and Gas Extraction database, created by National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in 2013 in an effort to mitigate the industry’s “unique safety and health hazards and historically elevated fatality rates.”
In all, 470 oil and gas extraction workers died, with contractors comprising about three-quarters of the total. The most frequent cause was vehicle-related incidents (26.8%), followed by contact injuries (21.7%) and explosions (14.5%). Around 20% of the fatalities involved lone workers.