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I just looked it up. Welding is definitely not a safe profession, but it seems like severe injury rates is around 3.5 per hundred workers throughout a whole car
by esperent 2y ago
I just looked it up. Welding is definitely not a safe profession, but it seems like severe injury rates is around 3.5 per hundred workers throughout a whole career. Definitely not "most". And about the same or slightly less than carpentry (4 per hundred), which from personal experience is a profession filled with decent and friendly people.
- lazide 2y agoThere is no way that is correct. What data are you using? [https://www.bls.gov/iif/fatal-injuries-tables/fatal-occupational-injuries-table-a-5-2020.htm https://www.bls.gov/iif/fatal-injuries-tables/fatal-occupati...] BLS is combining solder/brazing with welding. And has no concept of industrial vs fab, etc.
- bumby 2y agoYou are conflating serious injury with fatalities.
- lazide 2y agoThat sheet is fatalities. It’s literally in the URL and at the top of the page. See column ‘Total fatal injuries’.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bumby 2y agoRight. But the post you are refuting is talking about "serious injuries" not "fatalities".
- lazide 2y agothey were claiming numbers an order of magnitude less than fatalities.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bumby 2y agoPer hundred workers. Your link is in absolute units of fatalities, their claim is a rate. At the very least, you need the number of workers (which is also available in BLS data) to refute their claim. The data shows roughly 454k workers in the welders, solderers, and brazers occupation series. With their claim of 3.5 severe injuries per 100 worker-careers, that's about 16k severe injuries. If you assume an average career is about 25 years, that's about 636 severe injuries per year, compared to the 48 fatalities per year. So it's an order of magnitude higher (which I think is the direction most people would expect).
- lazide 2y agothanks for tracking that down! I stand corrected.
- TylerE 2y agoIt's not so much accidents as the lifetime occupational exposure. Metal fumes are nasty.
- Baeocystin 2y agoI did a couple of years at the NASSCO shipyard in San Diego as a welder after the first .com crash. The (literal) toxic work environment is why I left welding, even though I genuinely enjoyed the work. But I was already starting to see real changes in my health, even though I was super careful about respirator use, etc. What really sealed the deal was learning that my shift lead, who I thought was a good decade older than me, was actually a few years younger, but had just been welding longer, with the body damage to show for it.
- TylerE 2y agoYea, that’s one thing that really stood out to me when I did a 2 year mechanical engineering program - mostly training to be a cad jockey. Some of my teachers looked waaay older than they should have, and the welding instructor was the worst. Now think of how many guys there are out there doing it with no repository protection and the good ‘ole safety squints.
- potato3732842 2y agoThere's a lot of potential for petty injuries that'll be a nuisance for weeks to months. Minor burns, slightly smashed fingers or hands, some real good cuts, etc. Not a lot of potential for serious injury though above the baseline of your environment (i.e. air conditioned shop vs muddy trench)
- lazyasciiart 2y agoSounds like a kitchen.
- potato3732842 2y agoBut with less drama.