BUTTE — According to the Montana Department of Labor and Industry, three people were killed in 2018 by falls while on the job- the third leading cause of on-the-job death statewide.
Montana Tech has an unusual classroom that’s training students to limit that statistic.
At the university's OSHA lab, instructors Theresa Stack and Roger Jensen said the lab, equipped with different ladders and safety equipment, gives them the opportunity to train students in ways most other programs in the country can’t.
Jensen says falls account for more than 750 on-the-job deaths every year, and as many as 140 of them are from ladders.
The work that happens in the lab helps students to go out in to the industrial workforce and train employees to avoid those potential dangers.
Stack says combining classroom work with hands-on safety instruction in the lab gives Montana Tech students a far greater education than those coming from programs without this kind of lab.
