Whether you’re climbing atop a wind tower in western Oklahoma or working on an oil and gas rig, safety is critical for energy operations in the state. Yet a new government report flunks Oklahoma for its efforts to eliminate preventable deaths.
The National Safety Council released its annual State of Safety report this week, giving a grade to every state on preventable deaths and injuries. Not one state was give a grade of ‘A’. Not one.
Oklahoma was one of eleven states getting an ‘F’ for failing to do more in preventing deaths of traffic accidents, poisonings, drug overdoses, falls, drownings, choking and fires. The remaining ten were Kansas, Arkansas, Arizona, south Carolina, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Mississippi, Idaho and Missouri.
The report is issued each June to draw attention to eliminating preventable deaths. Fatalities have risen 7 percent since 2014 claiming 146,571 lives a year.
“The cultural novocaine has to wear off,” said Deborah A. P. Hersman, president and CEO of the National Safety Council. “Safety is no accident. We lose more than 140,000 people because of events we know how to prevent.”
