Safety & education:

problems in our industry:

This is a high-risk profession. The all industry morality rate-that is, the fatality rate of all occupations in the U.S. combined – varies between 4 and 5 per 100,000 workers. Very few industries have a fatality rate above 30 per 100,000. Unfortunately, tree work is among them, though not many people realize this.

If you ask most people what they consider to be a high-risk professional, one that comes to mind is police officer. Statistically, it may be safer to be a police officer than a tree worker. Police work has inherent dangers, and it certainly has its share of high- risk situations. Nevertheless, the fatality rate among police officer and detectives is about 13.5 per 100,000. The annual fatality rate for tree workers generally does not dip below 30 per 100,000 and may be higher in some years. Most tree workers do not think about that when they go to work in the morning, but this can be an incredible high profession.

Consider these statistics. What is the chance of you stumbling out of bed and killing yourself? One in 437,212. Most of you have no fear of getting up in the morning and getting out of bed. After you get up and have a cup of coffee, you have to drive to work. What are the odds of getting killed driving to work on an annual basis? One in 87,079 still pretty good odds. Most of you don’t fear driving to work in the morning. On your way to work, you decide to stop and buy a Power ball ticket. What are your chances of winning Power ball? One in 27 489,577. Now you pull into work and you’re an arborist. What are your odds of becoming seriously injured or killed while working as an arborist in the United States? We are not sure yet, but the data is indicating it may be less than 1 in a 1,000 perhaps much less.

Obviously, most people in this profession are never injured other than the nicks and scratches, but you would be pretty hard pressed to go through a group this size and not find that most of you know someone personally who was seriously injured or killed. That is why safety is such a critical issue in our field.