| Sumario: | This paper reports on multiple-fatality incidents in workplaces in the last five years of the 1990s. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries identified 1,109 instances in which two or more workers died of injuries sustained in the same job-related incident during the 1995-99 period. These incidents claimed the lives of 2,949 workers. One way to measure multiple-fatality incidents is by the average number of fatalities per incident. Water vessel casualty fatalities and fire fatalities, for example, each account for less than two percent of overall fatalities. The reason for the prominence of air crashes in multiple-fatality counts is that aircraft average three decedents per multiple-fatality incident, compared with two for multiple-fatality highway incidents. Of the nine incidents involving 10 or more fatalities, for example, seven were air crashes. Assaults and violent acts account for about one-fifth of multiple-fatality incidents and fatalities, slightly more than for fatalities overall. The fatal event or exposure, such as the air crash, head-on highway collision, robbery-murder, explosion or structural collapse, is the most consistent factor underlying the multiple-fatality phenomenon. Multiple homicides were particularly prevalent in used-car dealerships during the study period.
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