When you head off to work each day, you may find it to be a rewarding and fulfilling experience overall. Deriving something positive from your job can take place whether you’re a lawyer, doctor, machinist or truck driver. However, many work environments are extremely noisy places, threatening the safety of your hearing health when you attend day in and day out. A common work injury in certain industries involves hearing loss when exposed to loud noises time after time. Here we examine the noisiest jobs around so you can realize the potential impact on your hearing health, plus you can find out how to avoid permanent damage.
Miners
Miners work in very small spaces and often operate very loud machinery — a recipe for disaster when it comes to long-term hearing loss. Mining is a valuable industry, as it allows us to find the raw materials and fuel sources we need to complete other jobs. But the loud sounds generated by the heavy equipment that’s being used consistently within a confined space compounds the effect on workers’ hearing, with many of these employees developing hearing damage in time.
Farmers
Agriculture is another valuable industry on which many people around the word rely. Farmers grow the crops that sustain people, and they often derive joy from selling products grown with their own two hands. Unfortunately, with farming comes the daily use of machines that generate well beyond the 85 decibels that can incur hearing loss.
General Construction
Construction workers have quite a noisy job environment as well. Hammering, nailing, sawing and the use of dump trucks can all take their toll on the hearing health of workers, thanks to exposure to high amounts of acute noise trauma every day. This is why many of them choose to wear ear plugs or noise dampening headphones on the job.
Military Personnel
Between construction, guns, machinery and explosives, the military has one of the noisiest work environments in the world. The possibility of suffering hearing loss is compounded in the military, as many in the armed forces are exposed to frequent weapons training, along with heavy machines like tanks. This is why so many veterans return home from war or training with acoustic trauma and hearing impairments of varying degrees.
Night Club Employees
While you may love attending night clubs on the occasional weekend, nightclub workers have to be there several nights out of the week, exposed to thumping base, loud music, screaming people and shouting to be heard over the din. Working in a club is a sure-fire way to incur hearing loss. Risking their ear health every night are DJs, security personnel, bartenders and servers.
Airport Ground Workers
Working on the ground crew at an airport is truly a loud job, which is why these workers are required to wear state of the art noise-dampening ear pieces to protect their hearing. The deafening roar of full-sized jets taking off from the runway can be double the amount of decibels needed to incur hearing loss. The potential for hearing damage extends to commercial and military plane services as well.