Passing Gas: Silent But Deadly for U.S. Workers

It is Labor Day weekend. Today, we take a brief but disturbing look at workers in the oil and gas drilling business. Their work-related mortality rate is five times the rate for all American workers.

From 2008 through 2017, 1,566 workers died from injuries in the oil-and-gas drilling industry and related fields, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s almost exactly the number of U.S. troops who were killed in Afghanistan during the same period.

The Center for Public Integrity recently released a study on worker fatalities in the oil and gas fields. They told the story of Parker Waldridge, who recently burned to death in a driller’s cabin, known as a doghouse, atop the floor of Rig 219.

In my employment law class, we discuss a case involving two workers who were in the West Texas gas fields while they were maintaining drilling rigs. Storage tanks were next to the rigs. 

A cap on the tank failed but the workers could not smell or detect the capricious gas leak. Both were killed as they worked. The gas that was passed was silent but deadly.

Happy Labor Day? Not for all workers and their families.