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:: Monday, August 23, 2004 ::

Death risk stalks Florida workers By Jeff Ostrowski, Palm Beach Post
And in 2002, Florida's 354 deaths made it the third-deadliest state for workers, behind only California and Texas, in total numbers. But Florida's death rate of 4.4 fatalities per 100,000 workers that year was higher than Texas' 3.8 and California's 2.8 deaths per 100,000 workers, meaning Florida workers were more likely to die on the job.

Many of them worked in construction and agriculture, two crucial but dangerous industries that drive both the state's economy and its workplace accident statistics.

Too often, safety experts say, workers die because of the lack of simple safety steps. Farmworkers die when crowded vans, some not equipped with seat belts, crash during trips to and from the fields. Construction workers plunge to their deaths in falls that could have been broken by safety harnesses, better scaffolds or railings along the edges of the unfinished floors of condo and office towers.

'They're all avoidable, and that's the tragedy of it,' says Mark Ligon, the risk manager at Carpenter Contractors of America Inc. in Pompano Beach. 'Many companies won't make the investment in safety.'

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