More young boys than cops killed in Canada
T
ORONTO — Farming is one of the most dangerous occupations in Canada. Males are the most likely to get killed on a farm, especially men over the age of 65 and young boys. In fact. more young boys are killed in accidents on farms than police officers killed in the line of duty.For the latest years that statistics are available, from 1990 to 2001, 115 boys from ages 1 to 6 were killed in agricultural accidents on farms in Canada. During the same period, 19 police officers were killed across the country.
It is easy to see the correlation. The farm is the home and boys like to play around the house and barn. The most common accidents involving young boys are being run-over and drowning.
While the Ontario Farm Safety Association stopped recording farm fatalities in 2004, every year about 20 to 30 farmers are killed on farms in Ontario. The Ministry of Labour keeps track of on-farm fatalities for farms where there are non-family related wage earners. Fatalities on family farms where there are no outside wage earners are not included in their figures.
The latest statistics show that in Ontario from April, 2008, to the end of December, 2008, there were 12 fatalities on farms, of which three involved non-family workers on the farm. The three fatalities of non-family wage earners were:
• A worker in Norfolk County in western Ontario was operating a tractor when it overturned and pinned the worker under water.
• A London-area worker was run over by an empty combine driven by another worker.
• A Waterloo region truck rolled backwards and ran over a worker.
For the year 2007, there were 13 fatalities, which included three non-family workers.
The three non-family fatalities were:
• In the Niagara region, shelving was being loaded by the worker on a forklift. The shelving tipped and fell on the worker
• A London area trench under construction caved-in on the worker.
• A silo collapsed on a worker at St. Albert in eastern Ontario. The farmer noticed that the silo was cracked and to relieve pressure he opened a lower hatch. That shifted pressure and pushed out the wall, which fell out and hit the worker. "That one could have been a triple fatality," Ministry of Labour co-ordinator for the Occupational Safety Act, Wayne Del’Orme. They were fortunate that only one worker died because a second worker and the owner were standing next to the worker who died only seconds before.
If you included the fatalities from family farms where there are no non-family wage earners the total of on-farm fatalities in Ontario "would easily double or triple," Del’Orme said.