High risk jobs and the prospect of dying while working.

[T-Bird]

Hi.

A few recent events has left me wondering.

When a person follows a career by their own choice in, let's say: military, law-enforcement, heavy construction, mining, etc. do they expect that to be the eqvivalent of a office desk job when it comes down to the dying/getting severely injured while at work?



Back in the day when I was offered a peace-keeping stint into former Jugoslavia (that I didn't take in the end for multitude of reasons) by my CO, the possible risk to my health or life was something very obvious to me. Didn't bother me one bit though.

When I spent one and a half year in a ship-yard, all of us had near fatal close calls or witnessed them. That wasn't a surprise to me, but for some it was a horrible wake up call that they didn't quite recover from.


Carelessness and stupidity is one thing, that I brush off towards Darwin , but for me dangerous jobs are just that, dangerous. And there's usually some compensation involved because of that danger as well.

Yet, people seem horrified when soldiers, peace-keepers and miners die. In their dangerous jobs.

How come?

Regards
Sam

[Mark Latimour]

I don't think people are "horrified" in the sense that they can't believe someone died doing a dangerous job, but rather they are sad when people have to die doing a job that is seen as valuable or necessary (law enforcement, peacekeeping, mining etc). No one wants someone to have to die as part of their job and when people take jobs where there is an elevated risk, its sad when that risk comes to fruition because (at least in theory) a person who was brave enough to take that risk didn't make it.

The other point that is worth noting is that in many cases, these deaths are "avoidable" (ie troops killed because of friendly fire, inadequate body armor, miners killed because of inadequate safety procedures etc). In these cases, the "horror" at their deaths is compounded by the avoidable nature. If you take a risky job, you shouldn't be subject to further risks because of incompetence. You would hope that most deaths in risky jobs fall into the unavoidable category, but when they don't, its rather "horrific" to most people.