Wood harvesting accidents in the Austrian State Forest Enterprise 2000–2009

• We analyse wood harvesting accidents for a period of 10 years in Austria.
• An average number of 18.2 days were lost per wood harvesting accident.
• Tree felling is the most hazardous activity in logging operations.
• Accident rate is declining, with trained young workers involved in fewer incidents compared to the older workers.
• Safer forest operations are possible through future research and vocational training.

This paper deals with the analysis of wood harvesting accidents in the period 2000–2009 in ÖBf AG, Austria’s largest forest enterprise. In total 1077 accidents were associated with wood harvesting activities. The overall accident rate amounted to 54.2 incidents per million cubic meter or 77.1 accidents per million work hours. There was a clear spike in accidents between 10 a.m. and 12 noon. Most accidents occurred on Monday and Tuesday (24.7% and 22% respectively) and in March (10.8%) and February (10.6%). The majority of accidents were caused by slips, trips and falls (36.7%) and falling trees or harvesting equipment (22%). Frequently injured body parts were extremities such as legs (34%), arms and hands (26.9%) followed by the head and neck area (15.2%). Contusions (37.8%) were the most common kind of injury followed by bone fractures (12.8%), sprains or strains (11.6%) and punctures or lacerations (10.4%). An average wood harvesting accident required 18.2 days for recovery, compared to the 18.4 days for tree felling and 19.8 days for extraction by means of a tractor or skidder. Accident severity varied among body parts, head–neck injuries resulted in 10.1 lost work days, while injured legs required 21.9 days for recovery per injury. In the cases where multiple parts of the body were injured 30.7 days for recovery were required.