Research·
What kills workers: the leading sources of OSHA-investigated fatalities
OSHA has investigated 88,683 fatal or catastrophic incidents in which 92,124 workers died. Electrical apparatus, materials handling, motor vehicles, falls, and machines lead by source.
OSHA's fatality-and-catastrophe files hold 88,683 investigations in which 92,124 workers were killed. Classified by the source of the fatal injury, the deadliest categories are electrical apparatus and wiring, materials-handling equipment, motor vehicles, falls from working surfaces, and machines.
Leading sources of fatal injury
OSHA's own source-of-injury classification, fatalities only. (A further 9,427 fatal injuries are coded to an unspecified “other” source and are excluded from the ranking.)
| Source of fatal injury | Workers killed |
|---|---|
| Electrical apparatus & wiring | 7,764 |
| Materials-handling equipment | 6,198 |
| Motor vehicles — highway | 4,925 |
| Working surfaces (falls to same/lower level) | 4,863 |
| Motor vehicles — industrial | 4,585 |
| Buildings & structures | 4,328 |
| Machines | 4,223 |
| Hoisting apparatus (cranes, rigging) | 3,324 |
| Bodily motion / overexertion | 2,356 |
| Fire & smoke | 2,215 |
Split into highway and industrial classes, motor vehicles rank fourth and fifth — but taken together they account for 9,510 deaths, the single largest identifiable hazard family in the file.
How workers die
By the nature of the fatal injury, blunt trauma dominates: 11,870 fractures, 7,496 concussions. But two causes stand out as specifically lethal — 8,424 deaths by electric shock and 6,498 by asphyxia (suffocation, drowning, or oxygen displacement in confined spaces). Electric shock ties directly to the leading injury source above, and to the two electrical standards among the most-cited OSHA standards (1910.305 and 1910.303).
The occupations, where recorded
An occupation was not recorded for roughly half of victims, so no ranking is reliable — but among those that were, construction laborers, heavy-truck drivers, roofers, electricians, and timber cutters recur most often, matching the hazard sources above.
The falls in this file are the fatal end of the same hazard that fall protection (1926.501) exists to prevent; the machine deaths connect to the caught-in events behind workplace amputations. See the most recent fatal investigations on record.
Source: U.S. Department of Labor / OSHA fatality and catastrophe (FAT/CAT) investigation records, as indexed by Safety Incidents. “Source of injury,” “nature,” and “occupation” use OSHA's own IMIS accident-classification codes. These are OSHA-investigated deaths under federal jurisdiction and span several decades; not every workplace death is investigated or recorded here. Figures are computed directly from OSHA's published records.