Labor-related fatalities in forensic postmortem investigations during the past 6 years in the southern half of Osaka city and surrounding areas

To investigate fatal factors involved in labor-related accidents and events, forensic postmortem cases (n = 874) during the past 6 years (1996-2001) at our institute were reviewed. Among them, there were 67 labor-related facilities, showing a varied annual incidence (6-15 cases per year). All the victims were males (19-68 years of age). The most common sites of the accidents were manufacturing factories (n = 21, 31.3%), warehouse (n = 14, 20.9%), construction and demolition sites (n = 11 and n = 5, 16.4 and 7.5%, respectively). There were some characteristic types of accidents: falls from heights at work during construction and maintenance, and crushes by heavy materials and moving vehicles in transportation, by collapsing structures at demolition sites or by working machinery in factories. The most severely injured body regions were usually the head in falls (n = 13/23) and the chest/abdomen in crushes (n = 19/32). Most of the victims (n = 54, 80.6%) died within 24 h. Alcohol was detected only in four cases. Most accidents were considered to be due to carelessness and simple fault of the workers without any significant relationship to their professional training and career.