A case-study of accidents in a wood processing industry in Nigeria

A twelve-month case-study of industrial accidents in a large-scale modern wood-processing industry in Nigeria shows that 80.6% of the accidents were minor while the rest were major accidents. Incidence rate of the accidents was 64.6/100 workers at risk per year. The accidents appeared to be evenly distributed in the various production sections of the industry except for few but severe cases of head injuries that occurred mainly among the forestry, plywood and sawmill workers. About 39.8% of the accidents were caused by handling objects and 19.4% by falling objects. The incidence rates of the accidents decreased with increasing age and length of experience of the workers. The proportion of sickness absentees due to the accidents was 37.8% with 0.47 mean number of spells and 3.1 mean number of days lost per worker per year.