Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 46(2): March 2020 or exposure category, usually referred to as the event, is the manner in which the injury occurred. The arbo- ricultural operation incidents were coded into one of six event or exposure categories: • Contact with Objects and Equipment (e.g., caught in a chipper, struck by a falling branch, struck by a falling tree); • Exposure to Harmful Substances or Environments (e.g., contact with electric current, hyperthermia); • Falls, Slips and Trips (e.g., fall from an aerial device, fall from a tree); • Fire and Explosions (e.g., gasoline vapor explosion); • Transportation Incidents (e.g., struck by passing traffic, struck by a train); and • Violence and Other Injuries by Persons or Animals (e.g., bee sting, drug overdose, intentional self-harm). Within each event category, the data was placed into hazard sources based upon the narrative in the investigation summaries and reports. The traumatic injuries for nonfatal incidents were also noted. Only severe nonfatal injuries were included in this analysis. A severe nonfatal injury is defined as at least one-day in-patient hospitalization, work-related amputation, or loss of an eye (OSHA 2014). The arboricultural operation incidents were ana- lyzed according to these variables: • Event category (e.g., Contact with Objects and Equipment, Transportation Incidents); • Hazard source (e.g., electric current, falling tree); • Severity of injury (fatal or nonfatal); and • Traumatic injuries in nonfatal incidents (e.g., fracture, laceration). Descriptive statistics were generated for these variables to obtain information on the hazard sources of arboricultural activities (e.g., brush chipping, man- ual tree felling) and the consequences of an incident (e.g., death, fractures). Comparative analysis was based on proportions, not rates, as there is no data on the number of workers performing specific activities. Unpaired t-tests were used to determine if there was a statistically significant difference between fatal and nonfatal fall heights for different sources and activities. Since the incident reports for nonfatal are not included in all databases, the number of nonfatal 69 incidents reviewed in this study are fewer than the number of fatal incidents. This may give the false impression that there are fewer nonfatal incidents than fatal incidents during arboricultural operations. The fatal and nonfatal incidents for specific hazard sources are identified as percentages of the respective number of incidents reviewed to provide a better comparison of the data among sources. The number of incidents, as well as its percentage of fatal or nonfatal incidents, is identified for each hazard source (e.g., struck by falling branch). But the number of incidents related to specific activities (e.g., aerial device operator, climber, or groundworker struck by a falling branch) are given as fractions. This is done to highlight that these are approximations since the exact number of incidents is unknown. The time period 2001 to 2017 spanned three ANSI Z editions, 2000, 2006, and 2012. The most recent ANSI Z edition was published in November 2017. This most recent edition, ANSI Z-2017, is referenced in the discussion. However, if a specific standard was absent or worded differently in any of the three previ- ous editions, it was noted in the discussion. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION There were 865 fatal incidents reviewed in this study, about 51 per year, lower than the average number of fatal incidents per year identified in other studies. The BLS identified about 67 tree trimmer fatalities (SOC 37-3013) per year between 2003 and 2016 inclusive (BLS 2018). Other studies that reviewed BLS data during the past decade or two have found between 56 and 80 tree worker fatalities per year (Wiatrowski 2005; Buckley et al. 2008; Castillo and Menendez 2009). Our review has fewer incidents, as it includes only incidents in which there was a complete investi- gation summary to determine sources and activities. There were 441 nonfatal incidents reviewed in this study. There are few published surveys of nonfatal incidents among any landscape services occupations. One study of trimming and pruning injuries among individuals including homeowners estimated more than 650,000 hospital emergency department visits between 1990 and 2007, with slightly more than 2% requiring hospitalization (Watson et al. 2012). The incidents are discussed by event or exposure category beginning with the category with the most reviewed incidents, Contact with Objects and ©2020 International Society of Arboriculture
March 2020
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