Top 5 Causes & Types of Severe Work Injuries in Texas

Texas leads the nation in workplace injuries, particularly in severe trauma and hospitalizations reported to federal safety authorities. In fact, according to the latest data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), more than 14,600 severe injury reports have been filed on behalf of workers in Texas since 2015. On average, that works out to more than 4 severe worker injuries in the Lone Star State every day over the past nine years.

Focused on combating this issue and bringing injury rates down, OSHA regulators continue to conduct safety inspections while enforcing various industry-specific regulations statewide. They’ve also recently released a new Severe Injury Report dashboard that reveals far more about the incidence, types, and causes of the serious trauma that Texas workers most often experience, uncovering more about:

• Top 5 Injury-Causing Events & Exposures in Texas Workplaces
• Top 4 Types of Work Injuries in Texas
• Top 4 Body Parts Injured by Texas Workers
• Why OSHA Workplace Injury Statistics Matter

To see some recent OSHA enforcement actions in Texas, check out this OSHA case against an East Texas pallet company; this one involving a Houston-area crane rental company; and this one focused on a Houston-based contractor that’s been the site of three worker deaths within four years.

Top 5 Injury-Causing Events & Exposures in Texas Workplaces

Workers across several industries can face various job-related risks and dangers that end up resulting in accidents and various types of painful trauma. Most of the time, however, Texas workers end up sustaining injuries because they are:

• Compressed or pinched by moving objects: Nearly 1 in 4 severe injuries (1,018) that Texas workers suffer happen when they are crushed by or pinched in equipment.
• Caught in machinery during standard operations: About 23% of all severe worker injuries in Texas (979) happen when staff get entrapped in equipment that’s running as intended during normal operating hours.
• Falling: More than 1 in 5 instances of severe worker trauma (886) result from a fall off of a higher level onto a lower one, not same-level falls.
• Caught in equipment during maintenance: About 17% of serious worker injuries in Texas (730) happen when maintenance employees are servicing equipment.
• Exposed to environmental heat: Roughly 1 in 7 severe work injuries reported in Texas (571) are caused by extreme heat exposures, resulting in trauma like heat exhaustion.

Given these traumatic events, it’s crucial to point out that:

• About 24% of the catastrophic injuries Texas workers suffer occur on forklifts.
• Roughly 19% of severe trauma sustained on the job happens at oil drilling operations.

Top 4 Types of Work Injuries in Texas

When Texans are catastrophically injured at work, the most common injuries sustained, according to OSHA are:

1. Bone fractures, accounting for ~43% (4,443) of all worker injuries
2. Amputations, comprising ~36% (3,749) of severe job-related trauma
3. Cuts and lacerations, which make up ~7% (752) of these injuries
4. Crushing injuries, accounting for ~3% (349) of serious worker trauma

Top 4 Body Parts Injured by Texas Workers

Taking a more birds-eye view of worker injuries, OSHA also reports on the body parts that most often experience trauma when workplace accidents happen. In Texas, worker injuries typically impact the:

1. Fingers (~43%)
2. Fingertips (~27%)
3. Bodily systems, like the lungs or nervous system (~15%)
4. Multiple body parts (~14%)

Why OSHA Workplace Injury Statistics Matter

Workplace injury statistics and data, like the information above, can provide a crystal-clear window into the frequency, causes, and severity of injuries that occur in various work environments.

With that, it can be easier to:

1. Identify High-Risk Areas: Pinpointing the industries, roles, and/or specific work tasks associated with the highest injury rates can start to highlight opportunities to improve safety, reduce risks, and better protect workers, especially those in higher-risk positions or industries.
2. Understand Injury Causes: By analyzing the nature and causes of worker injuries, employers can gain insight into common hazards and dangerous practices, helping them develop more targeted solutions for mitigating any injury-causing events and exposures.
3. Monitor Safety Performance: Regularly reviewing injury statistics can bring bigger underlying trends to light, showing whether current protocols and technology are working and where safety performance may be falling short.
4. Address Noncompliance: Workplace injury statistics can keep employers in the spotlight when they fail to comply with OSHA safety standards and industry regulations. With that, potential fines, lawsuits, and increased insurance costs may follow.
5. Develop Preventive Measures: By understanding the most common types of injuries workers suffer, companies can create training programs tailored to prevent specific incidents while identifying preventive measures and safety equipment, like fall protections, that can better safeguard their workers.
6. Improve Emergency Responses: Through the lens of worker injury statistics, safety leaders can determine where emergency responses may be falling short, prompting the development of better first aid training, emergency drills, and/or other measures to optimize emergency responses to workplace accidents and injuries.

Beyond the Numbers: When Accidents Happen at Work

Workplace injury statistics can be as jaw-dropping as they may be disheartening, especially for workers in high-risk jobs who may not have the training, safety equipment, or support they truly deserve. Nevertheless, these numbers can shine an important light on concerning trends, highlighting a possible path toward improvement and accident prevention.

They cannot, however, erase the trauma workers have to live with after they’ve been hurt on the job. What can help these workers in difficult times is knowing their rights — and knowing when it’s time to talk to an experienced work injury lawyer.