RISKY BUSINESSES

More than 670,000 California workers were injured on the job in 1997, the latest year for which statistics are available, and the National Safety Council says that figure is rising. These injuries have broad repercussions, because employees struck down by work-related illness aren’t the only ones who suffer. Lost production time and health insurance payouts affect a company’s bottom line as well.

Many accidents occur in historically high-risk jobs, such as mining, meatpacking and law enforcement. But workers in offices, the high-tech industry and the burgeoning service industry aren’t exempt either. Back problems and repetitive strain injuries, for instance, afflict highly paid white-collar professionals as well as poorly paid factory workers and everyone in between, experts say.

Take the federal agency that gave us the lamentable phrase “going postal.” Postal delivery people face dangers such as being bitten by dogs and getting shot at, says Marianne Brown, director of UCLA’s Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program. In addition, “mail sorting still isn’t completely mechanized so they have a lot of repetitive motion disease in the U.S. Postal Service,” Brown says.

In general, employees who don’t speak English are at higher risk for injuries, says Michael Kushner, who oversees health and safety training for the Service Employees Union International. Unskilled immigrants often take dangerous jobs because those are the only labor options open. An inability to read warning signs posted in the workplace or booklets handed out by management also makes them more vulnerable to potential injury.

Health-care workers are another group at risk. From doctors to nurses’ aides, these employees are vulnerable to contracting diseases transmitted by contaminated blood, saliva and air. Some workers are at special risk for contracting airborne diseases such as tuberculosis, because they’re exposed to certain populations that have higher rates of the disease, such as the poor, homeless and unvaccinated immigrants. And accidentally pricking oneself with a contaminated needle can expose a health worker to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, or hepatitis B and C.

Last year, Cal-OSHA recorded about 100,000 accidental needle sticks in California, which so alarmed state officials that they passed a new law. As of July 1, the state requires medical employers to buy special needles with built-in safety features that decrease the risk of accidental sticks.

What can employees do to protect themselves? Kushner says it’s important for workers and management to work together to analyze hazards and generate solutions.

“Often, workers have a pretty good idea of what the problem is,” Kushner says. “Managers have to include them in the solution.”

The Times surveyed a broad range of professions in Southern California that present distinct, job-related health issues. Although some of the occupational hazards in these fields may be obvious, others may come as a surprise.

Nursing Home Aide

As America grays and hospitals seek to contain costs by transferring sick people to nursing homes, the demand for nurses’ aides has grown tremendously.

While the jobs are usually low-paid--$6 to $8 an hour is typical--they are also extremely taxing because of the physical requirements to handle ill and bedridden patients. In fact, experts say that a little-known secret of this increasingly pivotal yet bottom-rung health profession is its worker injury rate: 16 per 1,000 employees--more than twice the national average of seven per 1,000 employees.

“Unlike meatpacking, which is notorious for its industrial accidents, people don’t really think of nurses’ aides as endangered, but they are,” Kushner says.

Back injuries are the most frequent ailments, because nurses’ aides have to bathe, feed, move and otherwise assist patients. Additionally, they have heavy workloads and must work fast, which can also lead to accidents, sprains and pulls.

Purchasing hydraulic lifts for aides to use on patients in care facilities has been shown to bring down the rate of injury, Kushner says, but they are expensive.

“There’s a certain amount of ignorance out there about these injuries, so hydraulic lifts haven’t been implemented widely. But the money you save is worth it,” Kushner says.

In fact, he says, UCLA recently finished a program working with a chain of nursing homes that purchased the lifts and found that despite the big initial expense, they still saved money over having to deal with workers’ compensation claims and decreased productivity due to illness.

Lifeguard

If the job were only as simple as what’s shown on TV’s “Baywatch,” the main problem lifeguards would face would be uneven tan lines. But, says Steve Moseley, a captain of lifeguard operations for the Los Angeles County Fire Department, one of the biggest concerns is sprained limbs. The county’s 615 lifeguards made 12,000 rescues last year, and that’s a lot of sprinting over the hot sand and into the surf to save someone who is screaming for help.

“The ocean bottom is an uneven surface, so we tell them to run as fast as they can but don’t risk it, because if you hurt an ankle or a knee and can’t make the rescue, then we have two victims,” Moseley says.

Skin damage comes with the territory, especially for career lifeguards. These days, bottles of sunscreen, hats and long-sleeved shirts are part of the standard-issue uniform, and the county even pays for annual dermatological checkups.

Lifeguards also receive safety goggles, breathing masks and oral barrier devices to protect them from communicable diseases if they have to tend open wounds or issue mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

For the record, no local lifeguards have ever been attacked by sharks, drowned or broken their necks diving into the ocean for rescues.

“The most severe on-duty injury I’ve suffered was a scratched cornea from blowing sand,” Moseley says.

Aerobics Instructor

On days when we can barely drag ourselves to the gym after work, the profession of personal trainer can sound especially appealing--work and work out at the same time. But despite their superb fitness, on-the-job injuries can fell trainers and aerobics instructors too, especially if they overdo it, which isn’t difficult in their line of work.

“It’s easy to overuse your muscles and hurt yourself, especially if you teach too many classes. Some instructors teach 15 to 20 classes a week, and that’s a lot,” says Diana Diekmann, a corporate and personal trainer who also teaches aerobics at the Glendale YMCA.

Diekmann recalls a hamstring pull that was painful for weeks. She also once fell and sprained an ankle while teaching an aerobics class but was able to return to her routine after a few days by cutting back and being extra careful. But Diekmann admits she has been lucky. She knows trainers and instructors, many of them self-employed, who have been forced to stop working altogether until muscle injuries healed.

Colds are another problem for fitness instructors, who often work up close and personal with clients or lead routines in a room that is hot, humid and sweaty. In the flu season, those endorphins come at a price.

“A lot of instructors are off because of colds, and if it gets down into your lungs, exercising will make it worse,” Diekmann says. “But if this is your career, you don’t want to stop. You have to know your own body.”

Coffeehouse Worker

A little caffeine buzz never hurt anybody, but those gleaming, high-tech espresso machines are another story. Scalding is an occupational hazard among those who sling cappuccino all day.

“It happens all the time,” says Sue Cake, who works the day shift at Insomnia Cafe on Los Angeles.

Luckily, most coffeehouse scaldings don’t require visits to the emergency room. But according to UCLA’s Brown, another lurking danger is carpal tunnel syndrome. Brown says her information is anecdotal rather than scientific--as far as she knows, no one has actually studied the occupational health of coffeehouse employees. However, “we’ve heard complaints about the force that they have to exert when they’re using those machines and the repetitiveness.”

The fact that many coffeehouses employ teens may also contribute to injuries. The National Research Council says teens are injured at double the rate of adults.

Teen workers are “kind of a forgotten group, ignored or hidden. A lot of it has to do with not being trained . . . and they don’t feel self-confident about speaking up,” Brown says.

When asked about the sharp, shooting pains of carpal tunnel syndrome, Cake says she gets such symptoms but isn’t sure whether they are caused by the coffee machines or her work as an artist.

Brett Schoenhals, owner of Silver Lake’s Coffee Table, says that while he’s heard of other coffeehouses having problems, he relies on extensive training to keep his employees healthy.

“It’s all in the wrist--you just have to teach people how to use the machines,” he says.

Gardener

These workers have a tough row to hoe. Mostly self-employed and lacking medical insurance, the Southland’s gardeners often exacerbate injuries suffered on the job by failing to seek appropriate medical attention, says Alvaro Huerta, a spokesman for the L.A.-based advocacy group Assn. of Latin American Gardeners.

“It’s the type of industry where you have to live with the pain because you can’t afford to go to the hospital or take a lot of time off,” says Huerta, who estimates there are as many as 50,000 gardeners plying their trade in L.A. County.

The most common gardener complaint is lower back pain due to repetitive bending, lifting and stooping. Gardeners typically visit 15 to 20 homes a day and each time, they haul equipment weighing about 50 pounds in and out of their trucks.

Huerta says the hotly contested L.A. city ordinance prohibiting gas-powered leaf blowers has also increased workplace injuries, because many gardeners, fearful of breaking the law, are using brooms and rakes, which require more stooping. (Other gardeners have switched to methanol, which is legal.) Falling out of trees and becoming sick from herbicides are also concerns. When illness strikes, gardeners--90% of whom lack health insurance, says Huerta--may simply get a massage or visit a doctor in Tijuana when they get a day off. Meanwhile, the illness may get worse.

“The majority of these things go unreported, and the injuries get compounded by not getting treated properly,” Huerta says. “We’re trying to get them group medical insurance, but they’re in a tough predicament. This industry’s not regulated by anyone.”

Chef

It’s been said that chefs are the rock stars of the ‘90s, and with applications to culinary schools surging, the profession is hotter today than it ever has been. But occupational hazards abound here too.

One obvious danger is burning yourself in the hot kitchen where you spend your day. But there are more subtle ones. Industry watchers say chefs are at great risk for stress, weight gain and alcoholism.

“You work really hard in the kitchen all day, and then that pace is magnified by 100 times for three hours during service,” says Daniel Flores, the restaurateur behind Rix in Santa Monica.

“Chefs probably eat worse than anyone on the planet,” Flores continues. “They don’t sit down and eat a meal, they just snack and pick all day, and typically, chefs eat really late.”

With access to all that food and booze and those late hours, chefs are at risk for overindulging. Their frantic pace and long hours can also poison their home life.

“Most chefs have terrible marriages because they’re never home or not at the times when someone in a normal marriage would be home,” Flores says. “You’re working most of the times when everyone else is being social. And now you’re overweight and have a terrible marriage, so you start drinking.”

But there are ways to minimize the stress. At Rix, chefs work only five days a week, whereas in many restaurants they work six. And Flores says his chefs are encouraged to take five to six weeks off annually instead of just two, often going on restaurant-sponsored excursions to other cities or countries to sample different meals and learn new techniques.

In the weight department at least, Flores has seen some promising changes in recent years.

“It used to be that chefs were a lot heavier than they are now. For a long time, it was a bunch of old guys,” he muses. “Now there are a lot of kids going to culinary school, and they tend to be thinner.”