3 ms·
> The value of a human life seemed to drop pretty low during the Depression, but it wasn’t that great before then either. Very true. Every 10 stories of buildi
by xenadu02 3y ago
> The value of a human life seemed to drop pretty low during the Depression, but it wasn’t that great before then either.
Very true. Every 10 stories of building height had an expected death rate attached to it. Same for every extra 100ft span of bridge.
When the Brooklyn Bridge was built and workers were being crippled or killed by the bends down in the caissons... the solution was already known from research over a decade before. But we're not gonna pay people to not work (decompression time) so they just let people get hurt.
None of those things were considered very newsworthy or a significant problem to be prevented.
- hinkley 3y agoI don't know why I am surprised to hear the BB foundations were deep enough to cause that issue. It's clearly a deep water channel.
- CobaltFire 3y agoBeware assuming that the bends requires great depth as a causal factor; it is possible to get them as shallow as 10 feet. There are a lot of factors that come into play.