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Some people spend their days working safely in an office. For others, every day can be a dangerous challenge. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 2.8 million nonfatal on-the-job injuries in the U.S. in 2022, and about 374 million workers suffer nonfatal injuries every year globally.
Accidents can happen anywhere and in any profession, but some careers are inherently more dangerous. Seeking examples of these hazards, one netizen recently asked, "What's the 'Widowmaker' of your career field or hobby?" Turns out, danger lurks for veterinarians, divers, electricians, mail carriers, and fishers alike, only in different ways. Read on and find out which careers are the riskiest according to the people who work in them.
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#1
Cook here. For me it's those commercial industrial sized hobart mixers. Those things are out for blood and will absolutely amputate or pulverize your limbs if you aren't extremely careful.
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#2
Mailman, getting hit by other drivers in these tin cans we call vehicles, extreme heat, and dogs.
#3
Construction = everything will k**l you. The fatal four:
1) Falls (especially from 6’ or more)
2) Caught In Between (especially between heavy equipment)
3) Struck By (heavy equipment and materials huge here)
4) Electricity
But the biggest k****r of all: inexperience. It’s always the new guys with little training that get hurt and k****d.
Spencers slave no more 9 hours ago
Or the over confident ones who say "...I've done it this way for years and I'm still here...". People with that attitude are really dangerous too.
#4
For fishing, it’s definitely not wearing a life vest/PFD.
Five d**d so far this year from the areas I fish and follow on social media. All the same story: they took the vest with them but didn’t put it on. .
LakotaWolf (she/her) 16 hours ago
I don't understand the dismissiveness of people who refuse to wear life vests/PFDs. I've lived in a beach town my entire life and I've been on and around and in the water for most of my life. I'd consider myself an excellent swimmer. I still ALWAYS wear a vest if I'm in a boat/water vehicle of any kind.
#5
For kayak fishing, it's a spring day over 75 degrees. Guys go out on their local pond or bay wearing shorts and a T instead of a drysuit, and accidentally capsize into water still in the 40s. The shock alone often causes them to aspirate water and drown. But you only have minutes to get out before you succumb anyway. And they're typically not wearing life preservers, which can't do much in these circumstances anyway except aid body recovery.
Back when I paddled whitewater, it was trees in the water, colloquially called a 'strainer'. Even in flat water with a strong current, a swimmer caught in a tree is often pushed down and drowns.
Geoffrey Scott 9 hours ago
It is Memorial day weekend, Lake Mich/Huron barely at 50 degrees, Superior <40 degrees.
#6
I work in manufacturing. Lockout tagout violations are our widowmaker.
Someone was just k****d at another site in our network by a machine designed to push stacks of fully-loaded milk crates (stacked up to 8 high) into a square to palletize them. Stepped in to fix a jam-up but didnt stop the machine properly. Every site had to have an emergency meeting on LOTO protocol.
Upstaged75 16 hours ago
LOTO means that you disable the machine so that it can't accidentally be turned on while someone is working on it. There are lots of horrible stories about people who didn't follow the procedure and d.ied an awful d.eath.
#7
I work in Veterinary Medicine so the rate of people who off themselves is quite high anyway, but compassion fatigue is a big warning sign. .
#8
I’m a musician… the two biggest hazards are either d**g use or driving home tired after a late gig.
#9
Alcoholism is the widowmaker of the alcohol industry. From producers to salespeople, distributors to retail/bar sales. 20%+ alcoholism rate that I’ve seen many people ruin their lives in this career. It can be lucrative and a lot of fun but it can also take hold and be tough to shake.
Upstaged75 16 hours ago
I worked in a fancy hotel when I was younger. The sommelier was a cool lady, but a total alcoholic. I hope she's OK now.
#10
I’m a primary care physician. I’d argue it’s the “50 year old person who hasn’t been to the doctor in 30 years because they ‘don’t get sick’.”.
Kelly Scott 56 minutes ago
Or the 50 year old person who hasn't been to a doctor in 30 years because they can't f*****g afford it.
#11
Scientific diver. Decompression sickness, or, "the bends" almost always means the end of diving and sometimes is a literal widow maker.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 16 hours ago
That is what kílled the rescue diver who tried to recover the bodies of the Maldives divers :(
#12
Ladders. No, seriously. Ladders.
My profession has innumerable ways to get injured, sometimes seriously, but falls are the most common and most deadly. Just like with every dangerous thing(vehicles, power tools, electricity, heavy machinery, etc) people are super careful with them at first then get comfortable, then get stupid.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 16 hours ago
That's exactly how/why my dad's accident occurred :( He wasn't at work, he was at home, but it was the same concept. He went up a ladder to our roof to help put up Christmas lights on Thanksgiving Day. He was in flip-flops and had had a few beers with lunch. The ladder tipped back from the roof as soon as he reached the top, and it fell backwards, taking him with it. He fell about 10 feet and smashed his skull and ended up with several subdermal hematomas. He had catastrophic brain damage and was fully disabled after he came out of a 6-month coma. He never recovered. He had to have a feeding tube, a trach hole, and wore diapers for the next 21 years. His entire life vanished in the space of seconds, all because he was not careful or aware enough when he went up that ladder. I don't sit and blame him any more (I did at first - his accident happened when I was 18 and I was devastated) but it absolutely could have been prevented.
#13
Cirrus aircraft. Often referred to as doctor k*****s.
A lot of rich guys go out, get their private pilots license, then go out and buy the most expensive aircraft they can find. It's a Cirrus SR-22. It's a complex aircraft to fly and a lot of low skill pilots get themselves k****d in it. They aren't forgiving to fly like a Cessna 172 or another type of Piper trainer
Back in the day it was the Bonanza V Tail.
#14
Armored truck driver/ ATM technician here. Biggest one is not wearing your vest when out of the vehicle. The threat is still there when you have the vest on, but your odds are a little better and your beneficiary will get a larger insurance payout if you have it on and something should happen.
#15
I’m a runner. So cars, or more like the idiots operating the cars while also on their phones.
Geoffrey Scott 9 hours ago
One of the reasons I don't bike on our secondary roads anymore. USED to bike to work every day. Not any more. No respect, no gap.
#16
Eye doctor here. Not wearing safety glasses. It can take alot less to destroy an eye than you think. There are even documented cases of permanent damage to eyes from small nerf darts, let alone more serious trauma like from an airsoft or nail gun ricochet.
Spencers slave no more 9 hours ago
In a previous profession, for me, lime dust, especially if you wear contacts. If I knew we were doing road stabilising with mill and fill, I wore my glasses, not contacts.
#17
Psych nurse - Quit first job because mgmt wouldn't replace ceiling tiles where patients were starting to hide weapons. Head nurse and another quit too. Cops would drop violent patients off in cuffs and release them to us.
#18
I work at a Target store. There have been a few employees hit by cars in the years I’ve worked there.
I don’t care if you’re going 10mph in a parking lot, pay attention while you’re driving.
#19
Brass player here. You can tear the orbicularis oris (muscle around your lips) by using improper technique, which easily creeps in if you’re overdoing it by playing beyond your endurance. I’ve had this happen, but was inspired to work toward recovery after reading about Colin Williams (trombone).
Also, focal dystonia. In sports it’s called the “yips”. This is a neurological issue where you cease to be able to perform a fine motor action, such as forming your embouchure, pressing your instrument’s keys with speed and coordination, etc. This has ended the careers of numerous virtuosos such as Warren Deck (tuba) and Phil Smith (trumpet) due to their inability to form their embouchure, as well as oboists and flutists due to their inability to press the correct keys.
These two problems turn musicians’ lives inside out.
Upstaged75 15 hours ago (edited)
I played the trumpet briefly as a kid. I chose it because that's what my piano teacher played and I idolized her. There's a point when you're practicing that your lip can "give out" and you can no longer get the trumpet to make noise. (Because the muscles get tired from doing the "buzzing" movement. You don't just blow in a trumpet.) I freaked out the first time it happened thinking I had broken my mouth. 😂
#20
I own a countertop company. Plenty of people get crushed by stone slabs falling on them.
#21
Motorcycle riders who refused to wear helmets in the ER we call them organ donors.
#22
In zookeeping where I was, zebras were known as keeper k*****s. I only worked with primates, birds, and a couple smaller carnivores. (Of which there are some more hazardous than others).
Upstaged75 15 hours ago (edited)
I've heard the same thing about zebras. A keeper told me that if one escapes they treat it the same as if a lion or bear escaped - very dangerous.
#23
Film crew: 12+ hour days + driving and stress. First ADs have a life expectancy of about 55 because of stress.
#24
I’m a meteorologist, and in college, we had a storm chasing field study that was a requirement. With college kids out there, we obviously were SUPER careful. But there’s several stories where chasers got too close….
#25
Sparky here. I’ve seen the guys who have no fear of live voltage and they wind up getting hurt or k****d every time. It just takes the smallest mistake and you can only go so long without making one.
#26
I work EMS, so what we call a "Widowmaker" is a heart attack specifically involving the left anterior descending artery. I know other fields call other things widowmakers, like I saw an electrician call a double male ended extension cord a Widowmaker, and car people describe a certain type of jack one as well.
#27
Nothing really for my industry (illustration), but for a couple hobbies there are some dangerous situations.
For gardening, specifically growing squash and saving seeds, there's something called toxic squash syndrome which can happen when wild squash crossed with cultivated squash and can actually k**l you.
For canning: not following tested recipes and safe procedures can end up with botulism, which is also deadly. And you can't taste it or see it. Which is why I don't accept home canned goods from people I wouldn't trust with my life.
#28
Not securing your uprigging harness, video wall with poor latches and fully loaded stage decking carts in small spaces.
(Live events and theater)
You’d think it’s the huge quantities of electricity. But actually people are generally very aware and safe around the electricity.
It’s the equipment cart that weighs more than a rhino getting out of control that straight k***s people at my job. New People wonder why I’m the middle aged floor lady who barks about the d**n carts all day, it’s because they will k**l you d**d and new people take them way too lightly all the time. .
#29
In SCUBA diving it could be a few things since most of the safety precautions are about lowering the risk not really eliminating it:
* a nitrogen bubble that makes it to your brain or heart
* oxygen toxicity resulting in seizure (this results from high partial pressure of oxygen when you go deep with a Nitrox/Trimix blend that is too oxygen rich). . . Or you get unlucky
* panic. . . You can get nitrogen narcosis which makes you feel drunk or buzzed and then you can make questionable decisions and/or panic
It is a great hobby but gotta remember the dangers. . . We are going where we are not supposed to be.
StrangeOne 15 hours ago
Although I'm not a diver, I've been watching Dive Talk a lot and have learned a lot about the dangers of diving. When you're "narced" you can get confused which way is up and down. People will go down further, think they've gone out of the water and start taking off their scuba equipment. That's probably the most creepiest thing I've heard.
#30
My whole industry, welcome to the horsey world.
David Paterson 16 hours ago
This is not a joke. For example 2/3 of all deaths from nonvenomous animals in Sweden are from horses. Similar for Australia. You don't even have to ride a horse to be injured by one.
#31
Pilot. Multiengine flight instruction specifically is probably the most dangerous type of instruction. The margin between ‘maneuver we have to demonstrate’ and ‘unrecoverable spin’ is very narrow.
David Paterson 16 hours ago
Oh golly, that happened to Buzz Aldrin when he was still a test pilot.
#32
I drive a concrete truck. Two of the biggest fears are rolling your truck over while you’re sitting next to a ledge on a job site or blowing a front(steer) tire on the highway and losing control while loaded and causing a major accident. The truck is top heavy and weighs over 70,000lbs. when loaded….
#33
I'm a motorcyclist. I'd classify the Yamaha Vmax as a widowmaker. Accelerates like a race bike, turns and stops like a 900 pound Harley. Plus they don't make new ones anymore. If you buy one now, it was probably ridden and maintained by the kind of person who would read this description and want one anyway.
#34
I’m a Realtor. I could make the alcohol joke but really, meeting absolute strangers in empty houses is not the safest thing you can do for a living.
Cee Cee 15 hours ago
Remembering Suzy Lamplugh who disappeared after going to show a man 'Mr Kipper' round a property. This was thought to be John Cannan who had a criminal history for kidnap. Unfortunately no evidence and still nobody knows what happened to Suzy. Her mum set up a support organisation for those in a similar position to her experience. London 1986.
#35
Chemical engineering: About a generation ago, it used to be cancer. Now we are a lot better at chemical hygiene and safety in general.
David Paterson 16 hours ago
My father was a chemical engineer, and joked that he wanted a list of the deadly chemicals he worked with on his gravestone.
#36
I work in armed security. If you bounce in clubs, alcohol, women, late hours and egos are dynamite. A friend of mine had to k**l a patron who threatened him a few years ago. He never wanted to hurt anyone. He was never the same.
#37
Foraging: D***h caps, destroying angels, poison hemlock…mainly through misidentification as an edible species.
#38
I had to look it up, but for teachers it’s apparently autoimmune diseases. Likely from chronic stress. Or “conditions where their immune system attacks it’s own internal organs.” Good thing I had that before I started teaching.
Upstaged75 15 hours ago
My mom was a teacher right after college and she said that during her 1st year she was sick 90% of the time from whatever was going around the school. After that her immune system kicked in and she was practically immune to everything.
#39
Former dog groomer. stress/burnout but also groomer’s lung from inhaling tons of hair. i’m not kidding. pretty gnarly (in a bad way). plus bites getting infected.
#40
In the park ranger world, probably literal widow makers. (Hanging trees/tree branches.)
If not those, probably motor vehicle crashes,falls (we have a lot of 200+ year old wells randomly in the woods) lightning, or an irate visitor who has nothing to loose.
#41
Crunch time and lack of sleep. It’s better but back a couple of decades ago when I was a young guy in IT, I worked an on call job for a number of years. Averaged about 4 hours of sleep before pages and interruptions for about three years. I mostly got by, lots of slipping in naps, and a decade of insomnia after.
The older folks in the job though? Had more than one teammate rushed to the hospital because of heart attacks. Just the exhaustion and stress eventually gets to people.
It’s largely why now that I’m the old guy I absolutely tell jobs up front that I don’t do on call and that I won’t work for companies that don’t staff properly in the first place.
#42
I would say having long hair that can be grabbed and the potentially fatal head injuries that can result from that. I work in behavioral health.
Upstaged75 15 hours ago
There was a little girl in Nebraska who had her scalp ripped off on a carnival ride after her hair got caught on something. She nearly d.ied from it. She's going to require skin grafts and extensive medical care for the rest of her life. Something very similar happened last year in the UK as well.
#43
Historical reenacting: 60-year-old desk jockeys trying to run around like 18-year-old soldiers. Heatstroke and heart attacks abound.
Kelly Scott 43 minutes ago (edited)
That's like weekend warrior syndrome. Where middle-aged people sit at a desk all week and then go out and run around on the weekend like they're in a marathon. Doesn't turn out well sometimes.
#44
I’m a heart surgeon so that would be the LAD (widowmaker) But fixing that is also the Porschemaker.
David Paterson 16 hours ago
LAD = left anterior descending coronary artery. Porschemaker = big money earner.
#45
I’m a painter. It’s either depression, d***s, or cancer from all the toxins and fumes.
StrangeOne 15 hours ago
People see professional oil painters just painting like care-free, wearing just gloves. They should be wearing a respirator mask and longer gloves. I only paint with oils only once a year, if that, because of the lingering fumes that go on for a couple weeks and how clumsy I tend to be. I get it seared all over me.
#46
In trucking its the large rolls of sheet metal loaded onto a flatbed, colloquially called s*****e coils.
#47
Drag & queer nightlife entertainment in general: Unless you're at the absolute highest levels, it's not uncommon for your pay for a night's work to be $43 in tips and free drink tickets from the bar you're performing at, and so letting those free drinks go un-drunk feels like turning down half your pay. On top of that, your job requires you to be funny and sociable in the wee hours of the night while encouraging your audience to spend more and more money at the bar, while wearing uncomfortable costumes for hours on end, and on top of *that* all the societal factors that lead to higher substance a***e rates in the queer community in general, and your entire social and professional life (often one and the same) taking place in bars and clubs... it's a wonder there's anyone in this industry *without* full blown alcoholism. .
Ace 11 hours ago
If your pay for the night is that low then you're not really "in the industry" at all, you're just doing it because you want to perform. Nothing wrong with that, nothing at all, but it's a lifestyle, not a career. Oh, and I'm lead to believe that that côcaine use is almost endemic in that level of the entertainment business. Me, I'm happy if I get free beers when I play down the pub, it's more for my own enjoyment that theirs.
What do you think ?
David Morgan 13 hours ago
I am NOT blaming the victims, but it seems to me that for most of these entries (bar the careers with high stress levels), the risk comes from not doing basic research into what the dangers are, or outright ignoring them. EVERYONE knows you wear a helmet and other PPE when biking - it's impossible to not get told how important it is at multiple stages of learning to ride or buying a bike, but some people just won't. If you work with industrial machinery, look into how to operate it correctly - you should have recieved training, and at the very least, there should be big labels on the equipment itself.
murmelinpaiva 2 hours ago
I am a widow. My husband was a dentist for 44 years. He had dementia from exposure to toxic dental materials, including mercury. Mercury-amalgam fillings are relatively fast and cheap, but they are poison.
David Morgan 13 hours ago
I am NOT blaming the victims, but it seems to me that for most of these entries (bar the careers with high stress levels), the risk comes from not doing basic research into what the dangers are, or outright ignoring them. EVERYONE knows you wear a helmet and other PPE when biking - it's impossible to not get told how important it is at multiple stages of learning to ride or buying a bike, but some people just won't. If you work with industrial machinery, look into how to operate it correctly - you should have recieved training, and at the very least, there should be big labels on the equipment itself.
murmelinpaiva 2 hours ago
I am a widow. My husband was a dentist for 44 years. He had dementia from exposure to toxic dental materials, including mercury. Mercury-amalgam fillings are relatively fast and cheap, but they are poison.
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