OSHA's Page of Death
Struck by Nail. Crushed by Falling Wall. Caught by Rotating Part. These aren't the latest thrash metal bands — they're ways people die while on the job as described by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The OSHA Fatal Facts page methodically chronicles the link between slipshod work conditions and the Grim Reaper's advance, marshalling a grim online parade of data for a morbid march through the crossroads of Death and Labor.
Each of the accident reports filed on the OSHA Fatal Facts Page has its own atmosphere, and its own twist on the inevitable paycheck drawn by its unfortunate workers. From Electrical Shock to Trench Cave-In, OSHA has manual labor's dark side well-documented and organized.
And far more than most online poetry reviews, fiction home pages or other "emotionally engaging" outposts on the Internet, OSHA's Fatal Facts — presented in a precise, grey, professional format — tug at the heartstrings. Perhaps it's the very insistence on a lack of emotion and an adherence to the idea of anonymous restraint and professionalism that make these pages so engaging.
OSHA's ice-water cool description of a fatal accident might read like this:
The bore hole rod had been removed from the hole. While the rod was still rotating, the operator straddled it and stooped over to pick it up. His trouser leg became entangled in the rotating rod and he was flipped over. He struck tools and materials, sustaining fatal injuries.
It's hard to not imagine a human being — a son, a father, a boyfriend — crying out in surprise as he fell for the last time, a victim of some sloppy company's ignorance or disregard of section (29 CFR 1926.300(b)(2)). OSHA tells you about the death of a 56-year-old Boring Machine Operator, but the reader's imagination fills in the rest, transforming the government's catalogue of 73 accidents (collect them all!) into a finely nuanced house of sorrow and loss.
OSHA's Fatal Facts Accident Reports page was built to be representative of fatalities caused by improper work practices, its labor-related death stories serving as a cog-like segment of a dry online storage bin. It gracefully transcends its original purpose.
— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)
