The work death total in 2002 was the highest since 1999.

AUGUSTA (AP) – Thirty people died in workplace injuries in Maine in 2002, ending a decline in the state’s occupational death rate that started in 1999, according to a state Labor Department report.

Nearly half of the year’s deaths occurred in a single accident in September 2002, when a van carrying 15 Hispanic forest workers crashed into the Allagash Wilderness Waterway in northern Maine, killing all but one of the men aboard.

The report, which was released recently, also says 25 of the year’s 30 fatalities were transportation-related, and 28 of the victims were men.

Figures show that the number of work-related deaths in Maine had been declining since 1999, when 32 were recorded. The number dropped to 26 in 2000, 23 in 2001 and would have dropped to 16 in 2002 if the northern Maine van accident, the worst fatal traffic wreck in Maine history, had not occurred.

Preliminary workplace death figures for 2003 show a total of 14 or 15, Anne Beaulieu of the state’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said Monday.

Of those who lost their lives on the job in Maine in 2002, 17 worked in agriculture, forestry or fishing, six in wholesale or retail trades, three in manufacturing and four in other industries.

“Injuries at work claim too many lives – no one should die from earning a livelihood,” said Laura Fortman, commissioner of the state Labor Department. She said those numbers could be reduced through training and education.

Nationally, 5,524 workers died on the job in 2002, down from the 5,915 who died in 2001. The 2001 number did not include those killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

It was the largest year-to-year decline recorded, according to Scott Richardson of the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Maine’s occupational death rate for 2002 was not included in the report, but the state’s 2001 rate of 3.5 deaths per 100,000 was equal to or better than that of 14 other states.

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On the Net:

Fatal Occupational Injuries Maine 2002:

www.Maine.gov/labor/blsmain.htm

AP-ES-02-02-04 1546EST