People being hit by vehicles or equipment and falls from high places caused the largest number of work-related deaths last year in North Carolina.
There were 63 deaths on the job in 2022, a nearly 30% jump from the previous year.
The largest number of workplace fatalities was in the construction industry with 21 deaths, six more than the previous year.
Officials with the N.C. Department of Labor said there was one worker death in Craven County when a laborer got caught in farm machinery last August.
There were three in Guilford County; two men were shocked in separate instances at two different workplaces, one in January and the second in August. A worker at Proctor and Gamble was also killed when a 3,000 pound container filled with clear gel fell from a forklift and crushed him.
In Onslow County, the state documented two on-the-job deaths. Last February, a worker fell from a scaffolding while making repairs to the Jack Amyette Recreation Center in Jacksonville, and the cause death of a second man working for a landscape company was termed “other.”
There were no work-related fatalities in 60 of North Carolina’s 100 counties.
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“Each of these fatalities represents a person who was not able to go home to their family at the end of the day,” Deputy Commissioner of the Occupational Safety and Health Division Jennifer Haigwood said. “Nearly all workplace fatalities are avoidable, and our mission at the OSH Division is to work with employers and employees to ensure that these tragedies are prevented in the future.
