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Show Farm Workers' Accidental Death Rate High Last Yeai Farm workers had an accidental acci-dental death rate more than twice as high as workers in non-agricultural non-agricultural industries in 1948, the National Safety Council reports. re-ports. The 1948 death rate for farm workers was 55 per 100,000 workers, while in non-agricultural industries the average death rate was 25. The Council's ' announcement of the occupational death rates gave emphasis to plans for the sixth annual National Farm Safety Week, -proclaimed by President Truman for July 24-30. 24-30. Unsafe Acts Is Theme A survey of the Council revealed re-vealed that about 72 per cent of the accidents to farm people involved in-volved one or more unsafe acts on the part of the victims. The theme of the farm safety week observance will be to eliminate these unsafe practices which cause accidents. Other highlights of the Council's Coun-cil's annual report on accidents to farm residents were: 1. Total farm resident deaths from accidents were 17,500 in 1948, about the same as in 1947. Injuries totaled about 1,600,000. 2. Farm home deaths totaled 6,000, with approximately 900,-000 900,-000 non-fatal injuries. 3. Motor vehicles killed 6,500 farm residents in 1948 and injured 230,000 more. 4. The total of 4,400 farm work deaths was up slightly 2 per cent from 1947. Farm work deaths accounted for more than 25 per cent of the nation's occupational occu-pational death toll for 1948. 5. Public non-motor vehicle deaths, such as drownings, took the lives of 1,400 farm residents. On the basis of these figures, the Council said that one of every 17 farm residents in the United States will suffer a disabling dis-abling injury from an accident in 1949 unless more precautions than usual are taken. In the hope that more precaution precau-tion will characterize farm life this year, farm and safety leaders lead-ers throughout the nation are mobilizing for National Farm Safety Week to call attention to the heavy accident toll, and to educate farm residents in the measures that will prevent mishaps. |
