20 Years ago

It was 20 years ago since the worlds worst offshore oil rig disaster. A fireball burst through the oil platform killing 167 off the coast of North East Scotland.

There was a memorial today to mark the 20th anniversary.

BBC

Anybody here ever remember hearing about it?

Nope, but that's no surprise seeing as I would have been 9 years old and living in Yugoslavia at the time....

That sort of work is forever plagued with disasters, like mining I guess. I've heard some mining tragedy stories that really make you stop and think...

Quite so ... I haven't heard about it, I was 2 at the time, and my memory doesn't really stretch that far, but yeah there are quite a few jobs out there that we might not even know about that are very very dangerous and accidents do happen unfortunately ...

I think one of the most hazardous jobs is fishing, of all things. You don't get so many large-scale disasters maybe, but the proportionate number of people killed or injured in the fishing industry outnumbers almost any other profession....... but that's not the kind of stuff that makes the news I guess.... also I think construction workers, and of course miners... there was a list somewhere online of the most dangerous jobs out there. here goes - not the most up-to-date but I guess these things don't change too much year to year...

Cool link with some interesting facts in there ... thanks ...

I guess we don't think about such things very often.... you'd imagine working in the army or for the police would rate as higher risk than being a logger or a construction worker.... or a roofer or truck driver.......

Yeah that's very true, but media plays a great part in this ... you never see a movie titled "Beverly Hills Construction Worker" do you? lol ... that would be pretty funny though ... but that's also not to say being a cop isn't dangerous ...

The one job forbes doesn't mention is tower climbing. A few years ago when I worked at the tv station I got to climb about 400 feet up our 612 foot tower to paint some sections damaged over the winter and change a light bulb. It's not so much that it is terribly dangerous, but you get tired real fast. In addition to my 190 or so pounds of body mass, I had about 30 pounds in tools, a couple spray paint cans, and a big foam box with the new light bulb. Pretty much the first thing you do whenever you stop is hook on your tether and lanyard so if you do fall when you are working it is only going to be a few feet. The dangerous part is going up and down the ladder.

very very cool ... did that job pay well, or was it one of those ... "you need a job, so I am going to pay you basically nothing." situations?

No it was pretty much just because we had two engineers and one of them is terribly afraid of heights, and some of the other stuff that needed done was a two person job so the other engineer needed a hand. I'd helped them with some heavy lifting of copper chimney feeds on one of the transmitters after it got fried, so he asked if I would climb with him. I didn't make any extra money, just my standard hourly wage on the clock.

wicked I watched a discovery programme once about the people who go up onto the roofs of buildings like the Chrysler Building in NY to do maintenance work on antennas and things.... god that makes your head spin...

it's funny what we'll do for nothing It's nothing like climbing towers I know but my boss often sends me off to do simultaneous interpretation at seminars to help out the Serbian Customs Administration.... if I were being independently employed I'd be getting between 200 and 400 euro a day for that kind of work....

still it's fun and makes a change from the regular routine. I envy you about the tower kc0tma - I'd definitely give that a try

I don't like news like this. Craig even I don't know about it I was 6.

But I know now. No difference it makes me feel sad. Coincidentally, I'm listening to Titanic with my headphone on.

(argh)

I remember the Piper Alpha disaster quite well (I was 15 or 16 at the time - I'm too tired to do the maths on this one).

What I often recall most vividly about the 1980's in the UK was the seemingly endless string of disasters and accidents that traumatised the entire nation. There was one after another after another... those were weird and frightening times. There was a war too. Because we are a small nation, many of these events have become burned into the national consciousness: Bradford City stadium fire (1985), MS Herald of Free Enterprise (1987), Piper Alpha platform (1987), King's Cross fire (1987), Clapham Junction rail crash, Kegworth air disaster (1989), Hillsborough Disaster (1989)... there were more, I'm sure.


All the health and safety checks that we have today just didn't seem to exist back then.


p.s. apologies for a doom-and-gloom post.

whoah, zwirko. good to see we're all still alive