WORSE things happen at sea. So goes the old adage, and it seems to be right: fishermen are 50 times as likely to die at work as the average British worker.
Stephen Roberts at the University of Oxford compared the hazards of different occupations, based on published figures on deaths at work between 1976 and 1995 (The Lancet, vol 360, p 543). Fishing came out top with 100 deaths per 100,000 workers every year. Roberts says the job is inherently dangerous because of the risk of bad weather. But there鈥檚 also a tendency to cut corners because of the intense economic pressure on the industry, he says: 鈥淭hey basically take chances.鈥�