No matter the circumstances, at some point in our lives most of us have to get a job.
And while we’re all very familiar with the regular 9 to 5, there are in-fact some pretty
incredible people out there who take working to the extreme, and take on some of the most
life-threatening jobs around!
While putting your life at risk for a paycheck might not seem worth it to some people, the
fact is somebody's gotta do it, and I'm happy there are people brave enough to volunteer
so that people like you and I don’t need to.
So let's dive right in and check out some of the world’s most dangerous jobs in which
people are somehow brave enough to do everyday!
Earning a living could cost you your life if you have one of these risky careers.
Lets get it on!
Smoke Jumper We all know what to do when we see a fire
right?
Get as far away as humanly possible and call for help, but of course, someone has to be
the help.
Firefighters have one of the most dangerous and important jobs in the world, saving lives
and keeping people safe in the face of catastrophe, and while they're all incredibly brave, there
are some firemen who are braver than others.
Meet the smoke jumpers, the firefighter elite.
In the entire United States there are only 430 of them, and they do one of the most insane
but crucial jobs around and fight the fires nobody else can fight.
You've probably heard of the California forest fires which, due to dry conditions have done
billions of dollars in damage in the past few years alone.
Well, these fires usually start out in the middle of the forest, where there are no roads
or ways for traditional firefighters to get in.
Except for one: the sky.
Smokejumpers parachute directly into forest fires in order to try to keep them from spreading.
Of course, one change in the wind as they're falling and they can end up right in the middle
of a blazing inferno.
Thankfully they go through incredible intensive training and know exactly what to do in case
that ever happens.
Skydiving: terrifying.
Fires: terrifying.
Skydiving into a giant fire with no way out: just another day at the office for the smoke
jumpers.
Mountain Route Driver If you've ever driven along a mountain road,
you're aware of how absolutely nerve wracking they are.
Sharp, winding turns, narrow lanes.
But there are people who brave these roads on a daily basis, and in some of the hardest
to maneuver vehicles imaginable.
In some parts of the world, busses are the only way to get from one place to another,
and when these places have mountains between them, bus drivers have to be extraordinarily
careful.
After all they're responsible not just for their own lives, but for the lives of everyone
on board for the treacherous journey.
One wrong move and the entire bus can easily start careening over a cliff, down thousands
of feet before hitting a very rough sudden stop.
The fact that mountainsides can be known for not being particularly stable, along with
memorials for unlucky crash victims littering the sides of the roads, can't make it easy
to take on this job, but somehow these courageous chauffeurs steel their nerves and manage to
get their passengers to their destination safely every day.
Professional Cliff Diver Many people grow up with the dream of one
day being a professional athlete, and cliff diving is an extreme sport that's gained massive
popularity the world over in recent years.
Put the two together, and you'll find the relatively fledgling world of professional
cliff diving.
Started by Red Bull in 2011, the organization holds a handful of competitions for only the
bravest and most extreme of cliff divers.
Originally started in Hawaii, where men would jump off cliffs into the water below to prove
their bravery, the original significance definitely still stands today, because you've gotta be
hugely courageous to willingly jump off a cliff for fun.
Most dives are from 50 to 80 feet in the air, with the highest being about 100 feet above
the water.
From heights like that, divers can hit the water at speeds of 55 miles per hour, or almost
as fast as a car on the highway.
With those kinds of impacts, serious injuries can happen very easily with just one wrong
move, so professional cliff divers who compete in competitions have to undergo super hardcore
training to know how to react every second from the the time their feet leave the cliff.
Even with all the precautions and safety personnel on hand at every competition, people often
break bones or go into shock and nearly drown, making cliff diving not just one of the most
terrifying, but one of the most dangerous professions around.
Skyscraper Window Washer It's often the case in life that little details
can be much more impressive than the big things, and that's especially true in the case if
skyscrapers.
I mean sure, a big building is cool and all, but have you ever stopped and noticed how
clean the windows always seem to be?
It's one part janitor, and one part extreme sport.
Repelling window washers have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, starting at the
tips of skyscrapers, sometimes thousands of feet in the air, they have to jump over the
edge backwards with nothing but a rope harness securing them to the top.
While jumping off the top of a building everyday might seem like the most terrifying part,
that's not even the half of it.
While dangling from the harness, they have to clean the windows perfectly while being
slung around by winds that can reach upwards of 40mph at some altitudes.
Then while the sun is still out, they have to make it all the way down, cleaning every
floors windows as they pass.
The worst part is, by the time they get to the bottom, the upper floors have already
gotten dirty again, so they've gotta do it all over again every single day.
Icefall Doctor Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.
Every year more and more tourists come in by the thousands to get a shot at taking the
most extreme selfie they're ever going to get.
But for all those adrenaline thirsty glory seekers to make it to the top of the mountain
safely, the local sherpas have to carve out the paths for them.
On the way up the sherpas have to set up ladders and footholds to get tourists across massive
crevasses that are usually thousands of feet deep.
To do this they have to throw the ladders over the crevasse, and then while it's still
unsecured, crawl across on their hands and knees, with certain doom thousands of feet
below them, to make it to the other side and secure the ladders so that the tourists can
get across safely.
Being an icefall doctor is one of the deadliest jobs on the planet, and with constant avalanches
changing the landscape of the mountain, these brave people have to find a new, unsecured
path every time people try to climb Everest.
Definitely one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet.
Lineman While their name might not be too familiar
to you, linemen are actually some of the most important people in your day to day life.
As a matter of fact, you couldn't be watching this video right now if it weren't for your
local linemen.
These brave men and women work to make sure that electricity continues flowing all over
the grid, and are first on the scene when service is somehow interrupted, like when
a tree falls on a powerline.
As crazy as it sounds, they have to actually fix the live wires by hand, with not much
more than some insulated rubber gloves between then and one point twenty one giga volts straight
to the heart.
For decades, lineman has consistently ranked as one of the top ten deadliest jobs in the
US, and it's not hard to see why; electricity is nothing to play around with.
One wrong move and, well, no pun intended but, it's lights out.
Thankfully, these courageous workers are compensated pretty well, making on average 73 thousand
dollars a year, plus some serious benefit packages.
Still, no amount of money is worth your life, so you've really gotta have nerves of steel
to take on being a lineman.
Well, in this case, maybe nerves of rubber would be better.
Electrician Alphanist What would you think of a job where you only
had to change a lightbulb once every six months?
You probably wouldn’t imagine it being a well paid job, well think again, because that's
where the brave electrical alphanists come into play.
In order to make sure the bulbs atop radio towers never go out, these fearless engineers
climb to the top every 6 months and replace the bulb.
Working one day every six months might not seem like too bad of a gig, until you realize
that the tallest radio towers can be well over 2000 feet tall, and don't exactly come
equipped with elevators!
Electrical alphanists have to climb these colossal towers by hand with nothing more
than a cloth harness they have to detach and reattach every few feet keeping them from
a very, very long fall.
With that danger in mind though, electrical alphanists can make up to $20,000 per lightbulb
they change, with the average US salary being 67 thousand dollars a year.
Not too bad for 2 or 3 days work, no matter how terrifying.
Lifeguard If you've ever been to the beach or a public
pool, chances are you've come across a lifeguard before and thought they have a pretty relaxing
job.
After all, they get to tan all day out by the water and run on the beach in slow motion.
Well if you think that, then chances are you had a pretty good day on the water, because
when the time comes, lifeguards have an incredibly serious job.
Lifeguards have to be ready to respond at a moment's notice if someones drowning, stung
by a jellyfish, or even attacked by a shark.
In any of those situations, lifeguards put themselves in extreme danger of being pulled
under by panicking swimmers or even being attacked themselves, and who rescues the rescuers?
On some especially dangerous beaches, like the famous surfing spot The Seven Mile Stretch,
lifeguards have to save as many as 20 people a day!
Thankfully, through intensive training, good coordination and some serious courage, lifeguards
are able to save tens of thousands of people every year, and look good while doing it.
Wind Turbine Technician Wind power is quickly becoming one of the
most popular forms of green energy on the planet.
It's pretty simple right?
Wind moves a fan on a turbine and that makes electricity?
As always, it's never that simple.
Those giant wind turbines can get damaged, and since they need to be repaired quickly,
wind turbine mechanics are on the job.
These slightly insane, but definitely very brave men and women actually have to climb
up these 350 foot high turbines with nothing more than the kind of rope harnesses rock
climbers use.
Then, while they're still moving, they have to latch onto the blades themselves, and then
manually fix any holes with sanders and drills.
All the while hanging 350 feet in the sky while the wind whips you around like a rag
doll.
Sometimes they even have to do these precise repairs while dangling upside down!
With how wildly dangerous the job is, you'd think wind turbine technicians would take
home a hefty paycheck, but on average they only make about 53 thousand dollars a year!
Well there are people out there who like climbing to death defying heights for free, so it's
probably pretty cool to get paid to do it.
Gardener While being a gardener might actually look
like one of the safest jobs around, not worthy of a spot on this list, looks can be very
deceiving, especially when it comes to plants.
Some of the most beautiful plants can be some of the most deadly, and at the poison garden
in England you'll find some of the most beautiful and the most deadly plants in the world.
And where there's a garden, there needs to be a gardener.
Started by the Duchess of Northumberland as a morbidly fascinating tourist attraction,
every plant in the garden is poisonous, with some being able to kill you with just a few
drops of their juice, or burn your skin for up to seven years.
As a very well advised precaution, the gardeners at this truly unique site have to wear protective
clothing to cover their skin, eyes, mouths and face so they don't come in contact with
any of the lethal foliage.
That's one tourist attraction I think I'll stay far away from.