From puncture wounds, contusions and lacerations, workers in Northland's five most dangerous industries account for almost half of the region's 8844 workplace injury claims last year.
WorkSafe and ACC figures released to the Northern Advocate show that agriculture was the most dangerous place for an injury in the region in 2016, with 1367 injury cases and two workplace deaths. The third workplace death last year occurred in forestry.
Of the 226,782 national ACC work injury claims last year, there were 8844 claims in Northland. This compares with 8707 claims in 2015.
Construction was the second most dangerous industry last year, with 991 claims, followed by manufacturing (906), education (390) and forestry (374).
The main injuries include soft tissue damage, including contusions and strain, lacerations, puncture wounds and stings, foreign bodies in orifice/eyes and fracture/dislocation. Meanwhile, the causes of accidents across the region included mechanical malfunction, exposure to elements, tripping or stumbling and oral ingestion of fungi.
In Whangarei last year, there were 4611 ACC workplace injury claims with the majority of those injuries in agriculture (420), education (238), health services (295) and metal product manufacturing (192). Injuries were also claimed from business services (192), road transport (173), food retailing (156) and wood and paper product manufacturing (149).
There were 3209 claims in the Far North in 2016, with 1915 for soft tissue injury, including contusions and strain, and 668 for lacerations, puncture wounds and stings.
The largest number of claims were in agriculture (447), then construction (193), hospitality (149) and education (142).
There were 1024 claims in Kaipara, mostly from forestry and logging (261) and agriculture, hunting and trapping (190).
Meanwhile, WorkSafe received the majority of its 119 injury notifications from Northland manufacturing (18), construction (14), transport (13) and education (10). It is believed that the high number of education claims arises from the large number of employees and stringent health and safety protocols.
There were just eight notifications from agriculture and seven from forestry in 2016, despite the fact that all three workplace fatalities came from these industries.
investigated 11 claims last year - mostly forestry, construction and manufacturing.
In 2015, there were 142 serious harm notifications to Worksafe and four workplace deaths.
A WorkSafe spokesman told the Advocate that the agency only investigated the more serious reported injuries.
"There are lots of injuries that are reported that are below our threshold for investigation. WorkSafe NZ receive approximately 12,000 notifications per year and it is not possible for us to assign an inspector following every notification.
"Consequently we only respond to matters where the most serious of harm has occurred," he said.
He said WorkSafe also engaged in proactive assessment visits to industries where there was a high rate of death and serious injuries.
In March, a 67 year-old died in the Far North when the person's tractor went down an embankment. The second agricultural industry death happened in Whangarei after a 69 year-old reversed a small tractor down a small bank. In that month also, a 37 year-old forestry worker died in Whangarei after being hit by a moving tree.
The deaths of two male Northland forestry workers in their 40s in a helicopter crash in October 2016 were investigated by the Transport Accident Investigation Commission but not included in the Worksafe figures.
Northland's top 5 most dangerous industries in 2016:
1: Agriculture (1367)
2: Construction (991)
3: Manufacturing (906)
4: Education (390)
5: Forestry (374)
2016 fatalities:
Agriculture (2)
Forestry (1)