Work-related multiple-fatality incidents (EXCERPT), Monthly Labor Review Online, October 2004

Nine out of every 10 fatally injured workers die in an incident in which they are the only decedent. In these instances, there is one fatal incident and one fatality associated with it. But for the remaining 10 percent of worker fatalities, the fatal incident claimed the lives of more than one worker. These incidents are of particular interest to safety professionals and hazard researchers because the prevention of each such incident translates into the preservation of multiple lives.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI)¹ identified 1,109 instances in which two or more workers died of injuries sustained in the same job-related incident during the 1995–99 period. These incidents claimed the lives of 2,949 workers. Although multiple-fatality incidents account for only 4 percent of all fatal incidents, nearly 10 percent of fatally injured workers die therein. As the following tabulation shows, almost three-quarters of these incidents involve only two fatalities, but the nine worst catastrophes claimed a total of 266 workers’ lives:

Fatalities per incident	Incidents	Fatalities
Total ........................................	1,109	2,949
2 ..............................................	828	1,656
3 ..............................................	157	471
4 ..............................................	71	284
5 to 9 .......................................	44	272
10 or more ................................	9	266

One way to measure multiple-fatality incidents is by the average number of fatalities per incident. Overall, multiple-fatality incidents average three fatalities per incident. Federal Government multiple-fatality incidents average four fatalities.

This excerpt is from an article published in the October 2004 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.

Footnotes
1 The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) program, which has collected occupational fatality data nationwide since 1992, uses diverse data sources to identify, verify, and profile fatal work injuries. Information about each workplace fatality (occupation and other worker characteristics, circumstances of the event, and other cases arising out of the same incident) is obtained by cross-referencing source documents, such as death certificates, workers’ compensation records, media accounts, and reports to Federal and State agencies. This approach ensures that counts are as complete and accurate as possible. CFOI data do not include data on fatal work illnesses. For purposes of this article, CFOI data for 1995–99 were used.