How Far Away is Death?
How far away is death? From close calls to tragic accidents, these incidents are equally shocking as insightful.
Tune in every Thursday to see the newest edition, or scroll down to browse previous topics.
Head-splitting workday
April 24, 2026
A concussion injury happened at an offsite forest while an employee was collecting soil samples late in the workday.
To access the collection site, the employee who suffered a concussion had to cross over a roadside berm that happened to have a fallen tree on top of it. The employee thought there was enough clearance to go under this tree. There was not, and the employee hit their head on the tree while attempting to go under it.
The employee did not fall or lose consciousness. They did experience pain in their neck, right shoulder,
and on the top of their head. The employee did not feel their injury was severe enough to stop work, so
they continued sampling.
While maintaining situational awareness could have prevented this concussion and most other concussions shared through occurrence reporting these days, the team that developed this* made a deeper dive and provided recommended actions applicable at and away from work.
The next day, the employee was driving home and noticed they had a headache, head pressure,
sensitivity to light, pain in their neck and shoulder, and nausea. The employee stopped to call an oncall nurse with their medical provider. The nurse assessed that the employee could continue driving
and scheduled a follow-up appointment for later that evening. The employee was diagnosed with a
possible concussion during this appointment.
The employee went to LLNL Health Services the following Monday morning. Health Services determined that the employee had sustained a concussion.
Almost every task, no matter how mundane or routine or where it is executed (work or home), has one or more hazards associated with it. We lose sight of these hazards because:
• We rarely encounter or experience the hazard(s),
• When we do experience a hazard, the consequences are minor and insufficient to drive change, or
• We perceive the minor consequences as “the” consequences and not as leading indicators of
something worse that can happen.
Analysis identified three contributors to the employee’s injury:
• Unexpected condition (i.e., pause work condition) not acknowledged and addressed: The fallen tree
obstructing access to the sampling location did not merit stopping work and returning to step 1 of the
job hazards analysis. It did merit pausing work long enough to identify options for getting to the other
side of the fallen tree (e.g., walking around or climbing over the tree as well as crawling under it), the
associated hazards and the means of addressing them.
• Time Pressure. The worker was under a time crunch to complete the task at the end of the workday.
The crew had an early morning start the next day and could not postpone sampling until the next day.
This resulted in the worker A) rushing to access the sampling site and B) not paying full attention to
safely navigating the gap between the fallen tree and the berm.
• Spatial Disorientation. The worker was wearing a sun hat, and its brim blocked the worker’s view of
anything that was overhead and near the worker. The worker could evaluate the space between the
tree and berm before attempting to navigate it. However, the worker could not see the tree while
attempting to pass below it.
The key contributor to not promptly reporting and treating the injuries was not anticipating
conditions/potential failures and providing contingencies in response to them. The soil sampling was
being performed in very remote areas out of cell phone range. The potential need for communications
provisions appropriate to the work location and conditions, first aid kits, first aid training, and personnel
immediately available to render assistance were not addressed.
Maintain disciplined operations in whatever work is being performed.
• Pause work when an unexpected condition is encountered. Use this opportunity to evaluate
the unexpected condition(s), corresponding hazards/risks, and the response(s) needed to proceed
safely.
• Put safety first, not the schedule.
• Maintain situational and task awareness. Whether you are stationary or moving, know and
understand your relationship to your work environment, the task, and its potential hazards. Be alert
to changes in the work environment and task that may affect your safety posture, and keep in mind
that some of these changes may be the result of progressing through the task.
Have your concept of remote location include whenever distance or a physical separation imposed by work conditions/controls makes A) worker access to aid or B) aid access to workers a challenge. Evaluate whether additional controls and/or contingencies should be developed and implemented when this concept of remote location is used.
• Have first aid kits available and provide worker first aid training.
• Have reliable communication devices that provide effective communication with other crew members
and outside assistance, and a communication/check-in plan (e.g., action to locate the worker will be
taken if communication is not made within a certain timeline) while in locations where cell phone
service is not adequate.
• In cases where reliable communication is not possible, consider using a buddy system to support
injury prevention and, if necessary, recovery. A buddy system can:
* Increase the likelihood that unusual/unexpected conditions are identified, eliminated or mitigated.
* Provide visual monitoring of crew members or periodic communication between crew members
when visual monitoring is not possible or practical.
* Allow crew members to provide immediate assistance when unusual/unexpected conditions result
in an injury or other undesired outcome.
Give greater scrutiny to potential hazards that the combination of work environment and work
process may expose workers to. Example: Workers taking soil samples generally have little need for
head protection simply because they are taking soil samples. However, when sampling in heavily
forested areas, beneath solar panels, or near equipment in the sampling area, workers are more likely to
position themselves where some of these will become overhead objects when workers bend over, kneel,
squat, or reach to access the sampling location. This combination of work environment and work
process merits consideration of head protection for this task.
• Your supervisor.
• Your Integrated Safety Team member.
Content credit for this post: DOE OPEXShare, “Concussion Prompts Reconsideration of Remote Work Hazards and Contingencies,” published 11/15/2022, *Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS).
Going Bananas
April 16, 2026
Early morning October 28, 2025, a truck full of monkeys overturned in Jasper County, Mississippi. The accident involving the rhesus macaques caused public alarm along Interstate 59 and brought differing opinions from public officials and the local university, Tulane. Some monkeys fled into surrounding areas; others died; and a number were kept in their crates.
Pretty soon, the Jasper County area was rife with talk of disease, aggressive monkeys, and poor management of the situation. Apparently, the truck driver was the source, telling deputies the monkeys “carried diseases like COVID-19, herpes, and hepatitis C and that handlers needed protective gear to interact with them. These warnings led to the urgent response.”
Learn more about the misinformation spiral in the video.
Source/credit: AOL, “The Horrifying Aftermath When a Truck Full of Lab Monkeys Crashed,” Alexander Zarowski, November 2, 2025.
Deadliest Catch star dies in action
April 9, 2026
It’s been more than a month since Todd Meadows, deckhand on the Deadliest Catch, died from going overboard from the fishing vessel, the Aleutian Lady. The cause of death has been pronounced as accidental drowning with hypothermia complications. The fishing vessel was located in the Bering Strait at the time of the incident.
Siblings and an explosive device
April 2, 2026
Federal charges have been placed against siblings—a brother and a sister—and indicted with placing an explosive device, an IED, at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. The sister has been placed in custody and the brother fled to China.
Here is further information.
Daughter pilots plane after father’s medical incident
March 26, 2026
A pilot debrief tells us: “The pilot was out of it and the passenger (his daughter) had to try and land the plane and things would only get worse! This is the true story of Jennifer and her struggle to save her parents in N9132V, a Piper Malibu, after her father (the pilot) suffered a medical event during the flight.”
Watch the video:
Judge saves toddler in traffic
March 19, 2026
A Memphis judge, Tarik Sugarmon, was running errands when he went into rescue mode to save a toddler who had ventured into rush-hour traffic near the intersection of Poplar and South Highland Street.
The judge told Action News 5 that he heard a father calling for his little daughter and turned to see what was happening. “I ran toward her, but didn’t yell out because I didn’t want her to freak out. I was waving my arms frantically to get everybody to stop.”
After Sugarmon grabbed the child out of the traffic, he returned her to the father.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris happened to be driving nearby and witnessed the close call. He credited the judge on social media with saving the child’s life.
Sugarmon observed that the experience underscored how swiftly circumstances can go south, particularly with young children, as they don’t comprehend the dangers of quickly moving vehicles.
Industrial accident
March 12, 2026
A CBS News article described what happened to the ground crew worker, “The National Transportation Safety Board [NTSB] said in a statement that a member of ground support personnel was ‘ingested into the engine’ of an aircraft while it was parked at the gate with the parking brake set.”*
The CBS News article also informs us that, “Montgomery Regional Airport said in a statement that an American Airlines/Piedmont Airlines employee died in an ‘industrial accident’ around 3 p.m..”* An NTSB investigation is now underway.
We learn from an article** published on January 23, 2023, by the Associated Press (AP) and broadcast by MYNBC that, “‘A coworker who saw an Alabama airport employee nearly knocked over by exhaust from a jet tried to warn her to stay back, but moments later the employee walked in front of one of the engines and was pulled in, killing her on Dec. 31,’ federal investigators said Monday.”**
The AP article informs us that “Another ground worker on the other side of the plane had backed away after a pilot leaned out the window and said the engines were still running.
“‘Throughout the incident, rotating beacons on the plane appeared to be illuminated, warning that engines were still running,’ investigators said.
“The National Transportation Safety Board provided new details about the fatal accident involving an American Eagle jet in a preliminary report that relied on video surveillance and witness accounts. The board did not state a probable cause for the incident — that step usually follows an investigation that can take a year or longer.
“The flight from Dallas to Montgomery Regional Airport with 63 passengers and crew was operated by Envoy Air, an affiliate of American Airlines.
“An auxiliary power unit used to power the plane without using the engines was not working, according to the safety board, and pilots decided to leave both engines running for a two-minute engine cool-down period while they waited to for the plane to be connected to ground power.
“The NTSB said the ground crew huddled shortly before the Embraer jet arrived at the gate to note that engines would remain running until the plane was connected to ground power, and the plane shouldn’t be approached until the engines were shut down and pilots turned off the beacon light.
“The board also noted that an American Eagle manual revised in July warns workers never to come within 15 feet of the front of an engine — an area called the ‘ingestion zone’ — until the engine’s blades stop spinning.”
*Content source/credit: CBS News, “Ground crew worker killed after being “ingested” into plane engine at Montgomery, Alabama, airport,” January 3, 2023.
**Content source/credit: Associated Press (AP) via /MYNBC News (15 NBC), “New details provided in deadly accident involving Alabama airport ground worker,” January 23, 2023.
Idiots at work?
March 5, 2026
I gathered these clips from r/IdiotsNearlyDying.
I’ll agree they’re all lucky to be alive, but I don’t believe any of these workers are idiots.
What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments.
This week’s edition was written by Jacob.
Olympic ski jump close call
February 26, 2026
Olympic US ski jumper, Ben Loomis, was struck by one of the leaf blowers used at the 2026 games in Italy to maintain the Milan Cortina mountain snow surface. Loomis was readying to attempt the big jump when a blower hit him from the side. He later commented that if the blower had hit him in the face it would have been a much different outcome.
Weathering a loss
February 19, 2026
In January, the CBS Boise KBOI chief meteorologist, Roland Steadham, was killed in a small plane crash over Idaho’s Payette River. The plane apparently struck a power line on its way down, according to the Gem County Sheriff’s office. According to KBOI, “Steadham was a meteorologist for 35 years, won multiple awards during his career, and trained countless meteorologists who continue to inform the public across the country.”
The worst buildings
February 12, 2026
Okay, okay, so this is not necessarily about death, but some folks sound mad enough to kill regarding the unattractiveness of these buildings. See what you think about this list of buildings and feel free to respond with a comment.
