How High Does ND Rank For SEVERE Workplace Injuries?

If you're reading this in North Dakota, I'd strongly recommend wearing a hard hat!

Not even kidding, put that hard hat on before you read any farther, because I'm about to drop some pretty heavy facts on y'all!

North Dakota is painfully IN FIRST PLACE in a new study of OSHA data collected from 2015-2020.  It's not even close.

North Dakota's rate of 135 severe workplace injuries for every 100,000 workers is nearly 50% more than the next highest state!

Arkansas is second with just 92 severe injuries per 100,000 workers.

OSHA only started specifically tracking severe workplace injuries in 2015.  Just to get an idea of what types of injuries and industries are being looked at- click here for the entire OSHA report for 2015 or we can just read on...

I can only presume it's North Dakota's unique combination of agriculture workers and oil workers that must inflate the figures.

We're way ahead of Nebraska(3) and South Dakota(5), states that share a strong agricultural base.  Insurance Journal speculates that Arkansas ranks second over the five-year reporting period because their concentration of logging-related jobs is 18% higher than the national average.  Given that information, you'd think Arkansas could at least dominate in the amputation category.  Nope, once again DENIED by North Dakota!

So, how did North Dakota do across the board?

It's a sweep!

And there's much more information about these statistics available right now at MyHelpAdvisor.com 

Is fair to question the reporting standards of the rest of the states?

You can be fined thousands for not reporting severe injuries. Is it that North Dakotan companies are by nature more likely to report them? Y'know North Dakota nice and all.

Probably not, as OSHA states in their report on 2015...

OSHA believes that many severe injuries — perhaps 50% or more — are not being reported. We base this conclusion on several factors, including injury claim numbers provided to us by state workers’ compensation programs. Because the majority of first year reports were filed by large employers, we believe that many small and mid-sized employers are unaware of the new requirements.

So could it be that more injuries are reported in the oil fields based on the large employers present in the patch?  Maybe farmers are more likely to file claims because it's often a "family affair" as small-sized employers.

For me, the keyboard's not such a dangerous workspace.  Unless I hurt myself reaching for the semicolon key.

Just kidding, I don't know what a semicolon is for ;

Perhaps as a reader and as a worker, you'd have some hazardous work environment input you'd like to share?