The combination of heavy equipment, along with constant noise and motion, are some of the factors that make longshoring among the most dangerous jobs.
Six of America’s 10 most dangerous occupations include industries employing some 25,000 people working regularly in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.
The jobs include trucking, construction work, ship and tugboat operation, fishing, steel and iron work and heavy-machine operation.
Those risks tragically returned to the local forefront Thursday, when 55-year-old longshoreman Bert Tufele was killed while driving a yard tractor on Pier A in the Port of Long Beach.
Tufele, a father of five, is the third veteran longshoreman killed on the job in the past 18 months.