Anyone out there know how dangerous it is to work on an oil rig?

[Taverner]

Not that I'm considering it - but I just wondered. Besides the exposure to toxic chemicals, I've heard it's about as dangerous as working on a Crabbing Boat.

True? Myth?

[Huey P. Long]

1. There used to be a pay schedule. Lose a finger, $4000, a thumb, $8000

Etc...I'm not sure what arms, legs are going for....and there is life insurance too.
Just be 'clean'.

Its sorta dangerous if you are a roughneck. Be a cook.

[MADem]

2. Well, as they say, consider the source, but this might be helpful:

By any measure, drilling for oil and gas offshore is one of America's most dangerous professions. The risks are unavoidable: workers are on shift for an average of 12-hours a day dealing with highly combustible materials on a platform where cranes swing heavy equipment constantly overhead. All of this isolated hundreds of miles off coast. With seven to 14-days on the rig at a time, it can be a lonely experience. If something goes wrong, the Coast Guard responds, though even in the best-case scenario, help is not close. In the meantime, the crew uses watertight life pods that can hold up to ten people and that lower down into the water in the event of an emergency. There they wait for help to arrive. Such conditions can lead to rare but catastrophic incidents like the explosion that occurred April 20 in the Gulf of Mexico, some 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana, aboard Transocean's Deepwater Horizon oil rig. One-hundred fifteen people made it to safety. Eleven workers who are unaccounted for are presumed dead.
(Read "Ripple Effects After an Offshore Oil Rig Explosion"
The mandatory hard hats and steel-toed boots, aren't just for looks. In 2008, 120 people were killed in the oil and gas industry, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of those, 21 people died in the oil and gas extraction industry, which includes offshore oil rigs. Incidents aboard oil rigs are kind of like plane crashes: they occur rarely but when they do happen they have the potential to kill quickly, cost companies millions of dollars and raise calls for increased safety and preparation measures. "These events are low probability with a high consequence," said Greg McCormack, director of the Petroleum Extension Service at the University of Texas, which works with the oil and gas industry to safety train workers. "It is a hazardous business and that is what the industry has to deal with on a daily basis."
(See "Search Ends for 11 Missing Oil Rig Workers")
Though catastrophic incidents are rare, smaller incidents occur much more frequently. The Minerals Management Service, which oversees offshore drilling, reported 39 fires or explosions in the first five months of 2009. The good news is most of those incidents were minor and did not result in death; the bad news is that they even occurred at all. For the companies, managing the high risk is of the utmost importance when it comes to both safety and perception. "This is ultra-high stakes gambling," said Robert Bryce, a senior fellow with the Center for Energy Policy and the Environment with the Manhattan Institute. "Accidents like this are not only bad PR for the companies that are involved, they're extremely bad business." Energy company BP, which leased the Deepwater Horizon from Transocean for an estimated $450,000 a day, has been involved in a few large incidents in recent years. An explosion at a refinery in Texas City, Texas in 2005 killed 15 workers and injured many more. "BP is already snake bit when it comes to safety issues," Bryce said. "This is another bad blow."
Safety in the oil and gas industry is a concern both on and off shore. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which oversees working conditions in refineries on land, has issued multi-million dollar fines to BP, including a record fine of more $80 million following the Texas City incident. "There have been a number of incidents where no one has been killed or hurt, but where people could have been hurt quite seriously," said David Michaels, assistant secretary for OSHA. "We're very concerned that the oil industry is not making the investment needed to run these refineries safely and workers are paying for it with their lives." But Erik Milito, director of Upstream and Industry Operations for the American Petroleum Institute, an oil industry trade group, said the companies obviously take safety to heart. "It's the number one priority," he said. "Companies go through a lot to manage the risk. The end goal is zero accidents, zero fatalities, zero injuries."
(See a brief history of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.)


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1984296,00.html#ixzz1e0AGsb9A

[Horse with no Name]

3. Very dangerous

Heavy equipment, companies that don't carry Workmens Comp insurance, longgggggggggg hours...good money but my first boyfriend worked a rig right out of High School.

[HappyMe]

4. True.

Constant threat of fire & explosion. A lot of them are way out there, so it isn't like help is right around the corner.

[Fumesucker]

5. I've seen a man crushed between a rig and a crew boat..

Both barnacle covered.

It really depends on what you're doing, constructing rigs is considerably more dangerous than working on the production once the rig is done.

Nearly had to bail out one time from about sixty feet above the water, had a natural gas line spring a leak and catch fire from a cutting torch being used near it. Thankfully there wasn't a great deal of pressure and it just flared up for about five to ten seconds and then went out.

Overall on a production rig it's a good bit more safe than a crab boat, for one thing most of the time you're a good bit further above the water and the rig isn't moving around like a boat in the water..

[meegbear]

6. Oil Rig, Fuel Pipeline Perform Rated the Worst Occupation in America

http://blog.wedding-travel.com/bumbums/2011/11/01/oil-rig-fuel-pipeline-perform-rated-the-worst-occupation-in-america/

[riderinthestorm]

Actually oil rig workers don't even make the top 10 most dangerous occupations list

Fishing, forestry and farming top the lists. Oil rig workers aren't even on it.


http://businessinsure.about.com/od/workerscompensation/tp/The-Top-Ten-Riskiest-Jobs.htm

[Sgent]

13. That list

includes Oil/Gas extraction workers as miners.

[Trailrider1951]

7. Yes, I've been to rigs many times

I would go out to the rig and pick up core for my then employer. Those rigs run 24/7 until the total depth is reached. Some of the positions are more hazardous than others, and there is always the risk of a blow-out. The people who work drilling for oil and gas have my UTMOST respect. It is well-paid work, but those people work very hard, through all kinds of weather and the hardship of being on location out in the middle of nowhere until the job is done. And they earn every nickel of their pay.

[TexasProgresive]

8. I vote it is dangerous

I've been on a few rigs installing 2 way radios - pre-cell phone days. I remember watching the crew pull up drill pipe- the pipe in the hole would be clamped -the men would put a Paul Bunyan sized pipe wrench on the upper pipe. The wrench had a rope tied to it and they would wrap the other end around a pulley that was on the front of a gigantic diesel engine. The rope would catch breaking the pipe joint free. I was amazed that those guys had all their fingers.

That's just the every day-then there are chemicals, oil, sour gas (deadly), fire and explosions. Oh and they call rig hands rough necks.

[jobycom]

9. My dad worked on them for decades. I remember always being worried when the phone rang.

It's dangerous for the normal reasons--heavy equipment, lots of cables and ladders, the usual dangerous environment--and it's dangerous because you're in the middle of the ocean if something goes wrong.

My dad worked one week on and one week home for most of my childhood. I remember when he was out I would always dread the phone ringing. Once when I was 11 I got a call at 6 in the morning, and the caller asked for my mom, and I knew something was wrong from his voice. So I hid in my room, terrified he had been killed. Instead it was my best friend who had gotten killed, and the weirdest part is that I felt relieved that it was him and not my father.

The story doesn't have anything to do with rig danger, it just shows how worried we were when he was out.

He had several friends injured while working. One of his co-workers lost a finger, several had injuries ranging from cuts to broken bones. No one was killed, at least not that I heard about. I seem to recall that there were more fatalities involving transport to the rigs than on the rigs themselves. But it was definitely a job that you had to watch yourself on all the time.

Don't know if that answers your questions. :)

[polly7]

10. It can be very dangerous if you're not trained right and don't follow

strict safety procedures, lots of accidents. My nephew (coincidentally, my first ambulance call) fell 60 feet and broke nearly every bone in his body, my brother had his face smashed in when a boom swung around and the roughneck who was supposed to catch it slipped. Working in the rain, sleet, snow, winds ... slippery footing, long shifts ... it's not an easy way to make a living, but the money is good.

[s-cubed]

11. My husband has worked around oil rip workers. Yes, it is. n/t

[galileoreloaded]

12. Very Dangerous. 6 years, lost 4 friends. n/t

[laundry_queen]

14. Depends on what you're doing

and if it's a drilling rig or servicing rig. There are plenty of jobs that don't require you to be on the platform, drilling, that pay very well also. But yeah, plain ol'drilling rigs are a dangerous place to be. Put it this way - you don't daydream on the job or you get killed. And where I live, they work in -40 degree weather as a matter of routine, work 2 wks straight (w/4 or 5 days off in between), and travel constantly. I have had plenty of old friends from high school work on the rigs and haven't lost one yet, but I live in a province where you do often hear about workplace deaths often with regards to oil rigs. It's really gotten a LOT better, safety-wise, since 20 or 30 years ago, but the nature of the job, working with oil, chemicals and large pieces of steel swinging all over, it's still a scary place to work. Hence the good pay.