In a recent post, Jordan Barab at Confined Space takes issue with the way the media often portrays work fatalities as “freak events.” Jordan says that as far as he’s concerned, a freak accident is “when you’re sitting at your desk, minding your own business and a runaway satellite crashes through the roof over your head.”

He was reacting to the reportage on a recent on-the-job death of a steelworker who was killed after being struck in the head by material suspended from a crane. Those of us who make safety our business know that, sadly enough, there is nothing unusual about such a death. One of the reasons we so often use the term “injury” on Workers Comp Insider rather than “accident” or “incident” is to emphasize that these are human events that take a toll on flesh and blood people like you and me.

His point was that portraying work deaths as “freak,” “acts of God,” “bad luck,” or any other events triggered by the fickle finger of fate absolves everyone from responsibility. Far more often than not, work deaths are predictable and preventable. In another post on the language used to report work deaths, he states:

Don’t let the media or employers ever get away with dismissing a preventable workplace tragedy as “freak.” Don’t let them leave the impression that there was nothing that could have been done, or the worker’s luck had just run out. What to do? Reporters need to be educated about how such tragedies can be prevented. And employers need to be challenged when they assert that no one could have forseen what happened. That’s almost never the case and it certainly wasn’t the case in the incident mentioned above. Don’t let them get away with it.