The Most Dangerous Job in the World 🤯
Mike Rowe discusses the world's most dangerous jobs, highlighting commercial fishing, logging, and confined space work as particularly deadly professions. He emphasizes opal mining in the Australian outback as one of the most harrowing jobs he encountered during his Dirty Jobs series, describing the psychological and physical challenge of working 60 feet underground in extremely tight spaces.
Summary
In this transcript, the speaker is asked to identify the single deadliest and most dangerous job in the world. Multiple high-risk professions are mentioned, including commercial crab fishing (referencing the popular show Deadliest Catch), logging, and confined space work. The speaker elaborates on his experience filming two special episodes of Dirty Jobs focused on confined space work, including a particular job cleaning and refurbishing buoys for the Coast Guard. This task involved shimming up through a tube approximately shoulder-width in diameter to scrape debris, which the speaker filmed himself using a GoPro since a traditional cameraman couldn't fit. However, the speaker identifies opal mining in the Australian outback as the most challenging and dangerous job he personally experienced across 350 different jobs documented during his career. The opal mining process involves drilling shafts approximately 60 feet deep using a Caldwell bit, then being lowered into these deep holes with only a flashlight and mining helmet to search for trace elements of sandstone veins that often contain opal deposits. The speaker uses a vivid analogy to convey the claustrophobic horror of the experience, comparing it to being 3-4 millimeters tall at the bottom of a liter Coke bottle while looking upward at the distant surface 60 feet above.
Key Insights
- Commercial fishing, logging, and confined space work are among the deadliest job categories in the world
- Confined space rescue and maintenance work requires people to enter spaces as small as shoulder-width, which the speaker filmed with a GoPro because camera operators couldn't physically fit
- Opal mining in the Australian outback stands out as exceptionally dangerous and psychologically challenging among the 350 jobs the speaker documented
- Opal mining involves digging shafts 60 feet deep and being lowered into them with minimal equipment to search for opal veins in sandstone
- The speaker describes the subjective experience of opal mining as feeling like being microscopic at the bottom of a deep bottle, emphasizing the extreme claustrophobia and isolation
Topics
Transcript
[0:00] What do you think is the single deadliest, most dangerous job in the world? >> Deadliest catch. Crab fishing is still up there. Commercial fishing certainly logging. The whole confined space world. We did two specials on Dirty Jobs over the years called Really Tight Spaces. I remember shooting a buoy tube with the Coast Guard. They clean them and refurbish them before they put them back in. But there's a tube in the middle. It's hollow. It's about the size of your shoulders. You shimmy up there and scrape the crap out. And I did that with a GoPro cuz a cameraman couldn't get a camera up there. There were 350 jobs. [0:30] There's one that I would…
Full transcript available for MurmurCast members
Sign Up to AccessMore from Shawn Ryan Show
Shawn Ryan Suspects a CIA Asset Was Sent to Plant a Story 😳
Shawn Ryan discusses suspicions that a guest named Blair Armstrong, who claimed to be a former CIA asset involved in counterterrorism operations, may have been sent to plant a narrative about Russian uranium sales to Al-Qaeda. Ryan questions the timing and authenticity of Armstrong's claims, noting that a single inserted narrative element can launch broader geopolitical storylines on a podcast.
Is This the Youngest Car Crash in History? 😳
A 21-month-old child accidentally started their father's car, drove it through fences and trees into a pond while the mother was checking the mail. The mother, unable to open the front doors as the car submerged, managed to rescue the child from the back door. The child emerged unharmed and unfazed by the experience.
Navy SEAL Remembers the Horrific USS Cole Bombing 😳
A Navy SEAL describes his experience during the USS Cole bombing in 2000, where he was stationed 20 miles away and subsequently spent 30 days handling casualties and witnessing the damaged destroyer's recovery using the Blue Marlin vessel.
Why Did Elon Musk Say Space Looks Fake? 😳
The speaker questions the authenticity of the Apollo moon landing, raising skepticism about filming logistics and technology claims. They reference Elon Musk's statement that his car launch looked fake precisely because it was real, and argue that NASA lost the capability to return to the moon despite claiming they could do it again.
He Didn’t Believe in Jesus Until This Moment 😳
Jimmy arrives at Operation Restore Warrior skeptical of faith, but two counselors named Daniel and Jordan convince him of Jesus's existence by recounting intimate details of his past, including a secret elevator and a private path where he once called out to God, paralleling the biblical story of the blind man healed by Jesus.