Fatal & Nonfatal Worker Injuries in New Mexico: A Look at the Numbers
How many workers are hurt or killed on the job in New Mexico? Looking at the numbers for 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that there were 12,400 nonfatal injuries and illnesses in the New Mexico workplace. In that same year, there were 57 workers killed from on-the-job injuries in New Mexico, an average of at least one worker death a week.
This also means there were about 2.3 reported injuries for every 100 full-time employee in New Mexico. While this is slightly lower than the national rate of 2.7, each injury, whether deadly or not, represents a worker who was failed by their employer. Even though these numbers are below the national average, these numbers should be much, much lower, if not at a flat zero.
A Breakdown of New Mexico’s Worker Fatality Numbers
How did most of these deadly workplace accidents take place? According to New Mexico’s numbers for 2022, thirty-one out of fifty-seven fatal injuries occurred during transportation accidents. Four other deadly injuries were slip, trip, and falls, while eight fatalities were from exposure to harmful substances of environments.
At which jobs did these fatal accidents take place?
- 7 were in oil and gas extraction jobs
- 10 were from injuries caused by people or animals
- 11 were in construction or natural resources
- 17 were in transportation and warehousing
Who was killed in these accidents? Most of the workers were between 35 and 64 years old, and 53 of those who died on the job were men. The majority of fatally injured workers were Hispanic and Latino employees (30), followed by white workers (18).
A Closer Look at New Mexico’s Worker Injury Statistics
Nonfatal injuries can represent muscle sprains, carpal tunnel, and other painful but recoverable damage, sometimes injuries that don’t even result in days off of work. Nonfatal injuries can also represent life-changing accidents, however, such as amputations, brain damage, spinal cord injury, and paralysis. Just looking at the 12,400 injuries reported in 2022 for New Mexican workers, it can be difficult tell exactly how severe each of these injuries was.
What we do know is that these worker injuries represented:
- 4,900 days away from work due to the severity of the injury
- 1,900 of restricted work or being transferred to another job, as a result of debilitating injury
That’s for workers in the private industry. For workers in state and local government, there were an additional 3,800 injuries or illnesses reported, a 3.6 injury rate for every 100 full-time employees, which sounds abysmal compared to the injury rate for private industries. Unfortunately for the rest of the country, that is still lower than the national injury rate of 4.9. The overwhelming majority of these cases were reported among New Mexico’s local government employees.
While nationally, about 67% of injuries resulted in at least one day away from work, in New Mexico, 73% of injuries or illnesses reported resulted in at least one day off work. This suggests that even though there is a slightly lower injury rate for workers in New Mexico, the injuries for New Mexican workers are more severe, on average.
What Are Some of the Most Dangerous Occupations in New Mexico?
While any type of employer can fail to protect their employees, there are several industries where corporations and employers repeatedly fail their workers in serious ways. We’ve looked at one year’s data for worker injuries, but some occupations are consistently dangerous year after year, when it comes to both nonfatal and fatal injuries alike.
While certainly not exhaustive, the list of most dangerous types of jobs in New Mexico includes:
The survey of tragic accidents in dangerous industries illustrates the gravity of hazards workers face in these types of workplaces, as well as how it is employer failure that leads to tragedy for these workers and their loved ones.
Deadly Construction & Maintenance Accidents in New Mexico
The following survey of some recent tragedies illustrates both the gravity of the hazards that workers face in these types of workplaces, as well as how it is employer failures that lead to tragedy for these workers and their loved ones.
The following are some of the recent fatal accidents in the New Mexico construction and maintenance industries:
- August 26, 2020: A technician was on a stepladder to remove lighting fixtures at a medical center in Las Cruces. Since the lighting fixtures’ power had been left on, the worker suffered electric shock and burn injuries to his fingers, which caused him to fall off the ladder and hit his head on the floor, killing him. His employer, SitelogIQ – C & I Division was fined over $47,000 for failures that included not having properly trained the 27-year-old on deenergizing equipment.
- January 13, 2021: A roofer died after falling from a roof while cutting around an AC unit to remove part of the roof, and he fell nineteen feet through an opening in the roof, dying from skull, rib, and other fractures. This was an industrial building construction accident that took place at Nixon Enterprises in Portales, and the company was cited for failure to provide fall protection such as a guardrail system, safety net, or some personal fall arrest system.
- May 25, 2021: Two workers were operating heavy equipment for maintenance on a leachate vault at a solid waste landfill in Thoreau. A coworker dropped their cellphone in the vault, so they went to grab a tool to help get the phone back. When the two workers returned with the tool, the methane and hydrogen sulfide gases overwhelmed them, and they died from overexposure in that confined space. Twelve serious violation citations were leveled against the Northwest New Mexico Regional Solid Waste Authority. These failures included failing to meet standards for confined spaces, to provide respiratory protection, to keep unauthorized personnel outside of confined spaces, and to communicate hazards and proper procedures to workers.
- July 2018, 2023: A construction worker was working on the roof in Texico when he stepped into an opening in the roof, falling 12 feet down to the floor and dying of blunt force trauma to the head and internal injuries. The man’s employer, a residential remodeling company, was hit with 2 serious violation citations for lacking fall protection and related training, failures in supervision, and a lack of proper procedures and personal protective equipment (PPE).
- October 21, 2023: While removing bolts from a water line in Roswell, a worker was down in a trench, straddling the water line, when the trench sides caved in on the worker, crushing the 20-year-old in dirt, rock, and sand, suffocating him. His employer, the City of Roswell Water Department, has had more than $637,000 in fines levied against them, but they are contesting the 1 serious and 4 willful violations cited against them, which failures in safety training and education, failure to have protective systems in place, and violations in excavation safety.
- December 19, 2023: A 56-year-old worker was performing plumbing maintenance at a Bell Gas Inc. site in Roswell, removing a toilet and pouring muriatic acid down the drain. An hour after the worker entered the bathroom, the worker was found unconscious and later pronounced dead. The environment had set off the rescuers’ hydrogen sulfide (H2S) monitors. OSHA leveled 3 serious citations against the deceased worker’s employer, which included citations for failures in preventing worker exposure to toxic and hazardous air contaminants and failure to communicate the hazards involved.
Fatal Injuries at New Mexico’s Oil Rigs
Even though oil fields and oil rigs are rife with deadly hazards, from dangerous machinery to toxic chemicals, each of the fatal accidents below would have been preventable, were it not for employer failure or negligence in some way.
Recent examples of equipment failure and employer negligence occurred on:
- October 9, 2021: A worker at Polaris Tubular Services in Jal, NM was moving pipe when a pipe rolled off the pipe rack and struck the worker’s chest and sent him to the ground before then hitting him again on the head. The 27-year-old died from chest and head trauma. The employer was cited under OSHA’s general duty clause.
- July 4, 2022: While working for Nabors Drilling USA LP, a 36-year-old driller at an oil well in Carlsbad was removing bolts from a mud flow pipe when support beams failed. The support beams fell onto the employee and pinning him against a guardrail, fracturing his ribs and killing him from asphyxia and internal bleeding.
- July 9, 2022: At ground level, a worker was wrapping ends of electric cables connected to the drilling rig in Jal. A winch overhead that held a junction box snapped, sending the junction box crashing onto the 42-year-old who died of severe head injuries. Two serious citations were given to Nabors Drilling Technologies USA Inc., including one for safety failures with the cables for the winch.
- July 20, 2023: In Malaga, a rig manager was out inspecting line connected to the blowout preventer, when high-pressure air was released as a line ruptured. In fact, all the lines attached to the orbit valve of the blowout preventer had blown off. The air struck the 44-year-old square in the torso, sending him falling down to a lower level on the rig with a loud thud and bleeding profusely from a gaping hole in his hip. He would later be pronounced dead at the site. There has been one serious violation citation leveled against Patterson-Uti Drilling Company over the accident.
Fatal Injuries in New Mexico’s Fracking and Oil & Gas Industries
In industries that are already fraught with life-threatening hazards, employers have even more of a duty to make sure their workers have gear and equipment that they can rely on, and that they have the training and knowledge they need to make it home at the end of the day.
Some recent tragic failures in these regards happened on:
- March 4, 2020: Two workers were moving piping with their forklift forks extended, and the forks came into contact with an overhead powerline, electrocuting both the 24-year-old and the 29-year-old. This was on a job in support for oil and gas operations with Rt Trucking, and the accident happened in Malaga. The company received serious violation citations for powered industrial truck regulations.
- March 27, 2020: An oil and gas truck driver was killed in Jal while working for Sur Transporte, Inc. As the employee was outside, walking toward the back of the truck, an explosion ripped through the back tank and sent metal flying out, hitting and killing the 45-year-old employee.
- May 28, 2020: Three workers, ranging from their late thirties to early forties, were grinding out a crack in a tank in preparation to apply an epoxy at Oil Center. During this process, the buildup of hydrocarbon vapors ignited, and the resulting explosion and flash fire immediately killed one employee, while the two others would die in the hospital from their burn injuries. The employer, C&M Services, was cited for two serious violations, one under the general duty clause, and the other for a flammable liquids’ violation.
- March 16, 2021: An employee was cutting pipe in Tatum, at a Pevehouse Unlimited Well Site, when residual fluid in an inner pipe was released and caught fire, sparked by the cutting torch. The 53-year-old worker sustained such severe burn injuries that he would later succumb to them. The company was cited for failure in providing adequate PPE.
- June 26, 2022: Two heavy truck drivers were killed while in an open-topped frack tank a at an oil and gas services site in Loco Hills. They had gone into the tank in the morning to empty and clean the tank out on a remote site, and there were no other workers or eyewitnesses to see what happened, but the tank had only about two feet of water and oil, and the hydrogen sulfide gas was between 3 parts per million and 5ppm, not a lethal concentration, but both workers were found dead in that confined space. Three serious violation citations were given to A&R Services LLC.
New Mexico Employers Have a Duty to Protect Workers
The grim statistics and reports above cover a wide range of occupations and workers, but one thing that those injuries and fatalities have in common is that they were preventable. In other words, each worker harmed or killed on the job represents a failure on the part of their employer. Under OSHA’s general duty clause, employers have the duty to provide their employees with a hazard-free workplace, protecting them from physical injuries and from death.
When an employer fails in their duty, it is sadly the workers and their loved ones who suffer the consequences. Whenever such negligence occurs in the workplace, companies have to be held accountable and forced to make changes to ensure that such preventable and tragic injuries never happen again.
