56 Risky Jobs Where One Mistake Could Have Disastrous Consequences

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Hey, you there! Yes, you — the one who so often walks into lampposts or spills coffee on keyboards. There is nothing wrong with constantly having your head in the clouds, but have you ever wondered what would happen if your daily dose of clumsiness met high-stakes, risky jobs? If not, then welcome to the thrilling, edge-of-your-seat world of jobs that allow no mistakes — the kind of dangerous careers where perfectionism is everything and a single slip-up could be catastrophic!

Now, we all have our off days. But imagine if your job every day involved dangling hundreds of feet in the air, working with wild animals, or handling tons and tons of money. It’s enough to make your average drink spill or stubbed toe seem like child’s play! You better buckle up, butterfingers, because you’re about to learn more about these jobs with no margin of error, the careers with life-or-death consequences, and other professions that may make you thankful for that 9-to-5 desk job you’ve been complaining about.

We’re not just pulling these serious jobs out of thin air, though. We ventured deep into the Reddit rabbit hole to find you the cream of the crop. Thanks to this intriguing thread, we’ve handpicked a series of high-risk jobs that will make your palms sweat just thinking about them. Some are pretty obvious and renowned for their dangerousness, while others are totally unexpected — even for us Pandas, so used to dealing with the unusual, the weird, and the cool on a daily basis!

Time to scroll down and learn just how crazy the job market can be. Remember: don’t try these at home. You might be the hero of your own story, but some stories are best left to the professionals.

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QuinnieB123 said:"The person who checks the safety harness on a bungee jump."Blablabblue replied:"There's one instance that a dude said "no jump" and the girl thought he said "now jump" so she jumped to her death."lordjeferson replied:"That's exactly why in any job with high risks or lots of noise around you should avoid sentences containing "no" and "don't" as much as possible. There can always be some words that are overhead so it's way safer to use the opposite/positive word like "stay here" which can't be misunderstood like "don't jump"."

QuinnieB123 Report

The most deadly plane crash in history involved a misunderstanding like this. Google Tenerife Airport Disaster. It's the reason behind a lot of how pilots talk to the control tower now.

"Astronaut.If you mess up in space it's usually bad."

Emergency_Paperclip Report

Many people die when training to become astronauts and the training itself is scary for someone like me

pushittothemax11 said:"The people who climb and repair those radio towers. my brother fell off one of the towers while working on it, his harness luckily caught him and they got him down and he was immediately fired."KaiserRebellion replied:"What did he do wrong?"pushittothemax11 replied:"Lost his grip and fell, if he didn’t have his safety harness on he would have died, and that’s a huge liability most employers are not willing to deal with, so yeah if you fall once it’s a done deal."

pushittothemax11 Report

I would assume someone who fell once would be a very valuable employee, given that they know exactly what to avoid.

Plug_5 said:"Air traffic control. At one point, IIRC, it was ranked the most stressful job in the world based on the number of decisions per minute. You're responsible for a LOT of lives."bestpilotever replied:"We do have a lot of lives on our hands but we do mess up occasionally, we are human after all. We fix it and move on. There are a lot of backup systems in place to make sure everyone is safe."PeruvianFlute replied:"As a pilot, I’d also like to add we don't follow directions blindly so we are part of the backup system.Except in London airspace… There you do as you're told and pray."

Plug_5 Report

I think being an air traffic control person who has irritable bowel syndrome would be horrible.

Boulang said:"'I learn by trial and error.' - The worst parachute rigger, ever."kaladin-throwaway replied:"My parachute opened with massive twists that were unrecoverable, I felt pretty fast and decided to pull my reserve a little too late. Broke my tibia. They investigated all the parachute riggers and found a huge amount of people cutting corners and improper rigging. Kind of scary."

Boulang Report

One of the many reasons I will never go skydiving. Just a big nope from me.

"Those underwater welders have to deal with that delta-p variable while they’re repairing underwater pipes. They can literally get sucked into a hole the size of a golf ball."

Embarrassed_Fennel_1 , Official U.S. Navy Page Report

Anyone know what this is talking about?

lilmario954 said:"Structural Engineers. One f**k up and thousands of people are dead."SkippyTheAngeroo replied:"601 Lexington in NYC was nearly this - when the architects and engineers ran the wind test calculations on it they didn’t account for angled winds. Thankfully it was caught in time and additional work was carried out."

lilmario954 , 99percentinvisible.org Report

Huh. That was the plot of an episode of Numb3rs. Had no idea it was based on a real story.

Homeskillet1376 said:"911 dispatcher. For sure. Tomorrow is my 6-year anniversary."dharkmajik replied:"How do you do it?"Homeskillet1376 replied:"Just learn as much as you can and spend about 11 hours of a 12-hour shift answering mundane calls or listening to officers make a traffic stop after a traffic stop and make sure you answer them so you confirm their location in case some s**t pops off. Then that random 60 mins of the shift feel good about the fact that when the s**t does pop off you are the kind of person that people, officers, hell even the chief will call in sometimes to ask the details of an ongoing major event, knowing that I am battle tested and can handle anything and know who to contact before an officer on scene even has to ask. I spent my first 2 years asking so many questions and not knowing who to contact and when. Then everything started to slow down in my head and now I handle that s**t like 2nd nature."

Homeskillet1376 Report

Super stressful job? “Let’s make the shifts 12 hours…”

Much-Meringue-7467 said:"Being aboard an active duty submarine."JeffSergeant replied:"In the early days of submarines you could destroy the whole boat by flushing the toilet wrong, I imagine things are a lot safer nowadays."

Much-Meringue-7467 Report

I had a relative in the Navy who said the food on the Submarine was the best in all military. He also said they had to share bunks and his "bunkie" lost his watch on their first day. He couldn't get it ... and he heard the alarm for 4 years, every day.

propita106 said:"Pediatric pharmacy.The only error my husband made in something like 10,000 scripts was nutrition. Never a medication error. He'd remember the kids by name and would question changes (typos on the doctors' parts) because he knew the kid hadn't gained/lost that much weight that fasts. Their dosages are by weight, not age."ghtyadqw8785 replied:"Nothing like getting a referral for hospital discharge on a Friday afternoon. 11-month-old weighing 5kg and the family wants TPN until hospice takes over. Grandparents are in town for the weekend to hold the baby for the first time. You need to fit a ton of nutrients into a 350mL bag and the baby has a single lumen dedicated to their milrinone drip. So make it work within 4 hours or discharge is held up until Monday.No pressure. Do a good job and the family remembers the final week with the baby at home. Do a bad job and, voila, you just cut quality of life in half.Your husband is doing great work."

propita106 Report

CharlieSixFive said:"Explosive ordnance disposal."Reddit user replied:"Either I do my job right, or it's not my problem anymore."

CharlieSixFive Report

User No 1 said:"Those guys who check to see if you're secured on rollercoasters."WillBBC replied:"Now I’m legitimately curious. I’m assuming there are fail-safes in place that won’t allow the ride to start if everything isn’t secure?"WordStained replied:"There was just recently a teenage boy who fell to his death in Florida because his harness was not properly secured, so even if there are fail-safes in place, apparently they aren't entirely foolproof."

reddit.com Report

You know what they say, every time something is made foolproof, a better fool is born.

texting-my-cat said:"My ex made a small miscalculation on an industrial part he was engineering for like a big crane and cost his company hundreds of thousands of dollars and they had to shut down. The part was for a high-precision valve where even a fraction of a millimeter is the difference between something being perfect and absolutely useless.As a web developer if that were the case in my industry I would be out of a job today.Edit: I should mention it was his first job out of college and he was a junior engineer at the time. That company learned a big lesson on why you don't give potentially company-destroying tasks to the junior engineer with no oversight."Gh0sT_Pro replied:"Smart companies put multiple checks by different people along the line if something is that critical."

texting-my-cat Report

Yeah that sounds like the company was the real issue

Drepicpants said:"A forgotten one is train conductors. Imagine transporting thousands of tons of oil and depleted uranium through a city of millions of people."Fun_Intention9846 replied:"I was looking at these jobs. Apparently, engineers do the driving. Conductors just manage the paperwork/load in transit. Fixing broken couplers etc."Drepicpants replied:"The conductor is in charge of the entire train, they hold responsibility for everything except the locomotive."

Drepicpants Report

Who's responsible for what differs between countries and companies. At my job, I as the driver/engineer am responsible for all safety issues, I can delegate some things to the conductor but I'm still responsible. Also I can't imagine a cargo train having a conductor, but then again they wouldn't be fixing broken couplers either. Maybe it's a language thing.

Spiritual_Koala8259 said:"I’d guess brain surgeon but I’m not 100% sure and an anesthesiologist would be bad if it got past you and put into the patient."whag460203 replied:"Brain surgeon here. Errors are made with relative frequency, but knowing how to properly address them is very important and can be the difference between a good and poor outcome."

Spiritual_Koala8259 Report

"Forklift driver, till this day I will never forget what I did. If you think being forklift certified is cool and you can brag it to your friends. Just wait until something happens to you or to your co-workers.8mph forklifts, easy 180 and 360-degree turns.Just be careful of what you're doing, either outside or inside. Just be careful."

PJBakesCookies Report

Has anyone ever bragged to their friends about being a forklift driver? It’s a good living, but they’re not Lamborghinis.

"Those people who regulate content on youtube or on other social media apps. Sure, some people like to f**k with them and report a ten-hour clip of Squidward groaning or something, but they have to go through videos of murdering people, cannibalism, etc. and they don’t get paid enough for it."

AggressiveCrab007 Report

Doesn't belong here. A thankless task, perhaps, but I can't see any "disastrous consequences" from making a mistake,

welcome-to-my-mind said:"Gasket manufacturers for NASA."mhwnc replied:"They can screw up so long as they don’t screw up on the windiest day in the history of the eastern launch range. Challenger would’ve made it to space and back without the wind gust. The SRB welded itself shut. But mix a blown O-ring and the highest recorded wind gust at Cape Canaveral and it’s the perfect recipe for an explosion that killed 7 people."

welcome-to-my-mind Report

Reddit user said:"Airplane mechanics."Electrical_Age_336 replied:"As somebody who has this exact job, it depends on the mess up and how quickly it's noticed."

reddit.com Report

yeah just wipe the struts off. if they catch it on the trim pad we'll call it back. When your name is all over the forms, if something happens to that plane, they will be looking for you. Planes also have manuals that tell you every single step to repair/replace and visually check. And back up systems.

hispanicausinpanic said:"Electrician here. Last year I had a major electrical accident and if I weren't in my full PPE I could have been severely injured or killed. I walked away with no injuries."PresenceEducational3 replied:"My hubby is a sparky too, he calls electricity " invisible death" touch the wrong thing at the wrong time, and it's game over."hispanicausinpanic replied:"Yeah if you don't know what you're doing you will be done in a blink of an eye. Electrical isn't hard to do but you need to know all the ins and outs or you'll get hurt."

hispanicausinpanic Report

the math involved, knowing what size wire is needed/required, 2" thick code book. Permits. Oy! the math! I don't why homeowners think they can do electrical work. Customers always want decor over safety. and whine when they can't

hmmm_thought_pig said:"Pathologist."ValkoinenPanda replied:"Definitely. Misdiagnose a malign tumor for a benign one and your patient will lose his/her chance of receiving proper treatment in time."

hmmm_thought_pig Report

turnOn said:"Compound pharmacy. The techs and pharmacists who make IV bags. If there's ANY math mistake, a decimal moved, wrong conversion, it could severely hurt or kill someone easily."N0N00dz4U replied:"Don't forget sloppy technique, poor hand hygiene, and lazy cleaning protocol. The hood doesn't play."

turnOn Report

coffeeblossom said:"Working in the blood bank. Any f**kup, even the tiniest clerical error, can cause someone to die a horrible death."fubo replied:"There seems to be plenty of error-checking in place to catch f**kups, though; both checking to make sure that the blood is labeled correctly and that it is safe to use."TheLazyD0G replied:"Yeah, my wife's blood type was mislabeled in the hospital record system when she had a c-section. Later on, we discovered the error while going over our kid's care with a nurse. I about lost it since I thought they would have given my wife the wrong blood if she needed it. But the nurse told me they test the patient's blood before giving blood. So they would have caught the error before hand, or so she said. Luckily everything worked out ok."

coffeeblossom Report

reallybakedpotato said:"Commercial divers (especially saturated divers).High voltage line inspectors."wufoo2 replied:"Cliff diver.Norm McDonald once said that there are good cliff divers, and there’s "stuff on a rock"."

reallybakedpotato Report

"CPS worker. You mess up and make the wrong decision, either a kid dies or you rip apart a family for no good reason. It's a lot of stress for a 22-year-old to handle."

jevoudraiscroire Report

22-year-old with a degree and on starvation wages.

"Dredging, deep and shallow water.I've only done shallow dredging 12-15 feet maximum, but I've heard some horror stories from deep sea guys who have lost friends because of the risk."

reddit.com Report

"Working in a BSL-4 lab. All diseases have no cure. A major mess up would lead to thousands or possibly millions dying."

makattack04 Report

Ahh that was you?

"Lineman.One mess-up and you are dead."

Truthisnotallowed , Gillfoto Report

Unless you are in Wichita.

SUSPECT_XX said:"Any of the jobs on the deck of an aircraft carrier."NoeTellusom replied:"My husband spent the last 10 years of his 20 in the Navy working on them. The stories, dear Gods, make my blood cold."

SUSPECT_XX Report

FinniboiXD said:"Bodyguard. "Hey look that's a cool pebbl- " congrats the president is dead!"arc1261 replied:"No bodyguards can make a bunch of mess ups and be just fine. They just cannot make a mess up when it matters (which is rarely). If a bodyguard gets distracted but nothing happens who’s gonna know? But he still messed up."Reddit user replied:"I remember when Jimmy Carter was president. At one point, he and his family rode on a passenger riverboat down the Mississippi and made stops in towns along the way. His daughter Amy was about 11, and she was walking between two Secret Service agents with the family dog. The dog got away from her, and she took off after it, and the two Secret Service agents kept walking for a few yards before they realized that Amy wasn't between them anymore."

FinniboiXD Report

axeman020 said:"Roughneck (oil rig worker)."Consonant replied:"Dude I only worked in production but saw plenty of action on the real rigs.My question is how in the f**k do they train for some of that s**t?!?Like it all goes so fast and there are so many pinch points and heavy things moving and rotating that learning on the spot seems impossible.Like do they have practice rigs somewhere you can learn it slowly hahaha."

axeman020 Report

SanjiWanji said:"My job. I work with critically ill kids who require 24/7 ventilation and tracheostomy cares."lawrence1998 replied:"That seems like it'd be very difficult emotionally, I respect your devotion."

SanjiWanji Report

Generically_Yours said:"Printing press operator.I notice doctors, judges, lawyers, and politicians can all mess up their jobs and keep them because "they're so important", but nothing protects you from getting fired with one mistake on a single press job even if you have years of experience because... you're just replaceable to whoever is willing to get paid dirt to run a machine that will kill them if operated wrong."fluid_reference replied:"I used to work as a printing press operator. The constant risk of getting absolutely demolished is terrifying in hindsight.It was my first job. They paid about 10€ ($10.72) an hour, and would only give two-week contracts. Worked through two contracts and bounced. Complete bulls**t job."

Generically_Yours , Dinma Nwankwo Report

My grandfather was a pressman at a major newspaper when newspapers mattered. What? I said . . . The presses are noisy

"Tubing snubber. High-pressure gas wells need a pipe installed deeply to extract the gas. But there is so much pressure it would normally blow it out and spaghetti all over the place if you tried. So they jack the pipe in the hole with hydraulic rams to hold it down. Pull the wrong lever while that is going on and miles of pipe will come snaking out of the hole very quickly. Dangerous job."

JU5TlN Report

Kakaroshitto said:"Skydiving instructor."Failfish2015 replied:"Reminds me of the story about some guy who was a veteran skydiver, jumped thousands of times, probably working on autopilot reached for his chute in midair only to realize it wasn't there.He had jumped with a bag of other equipment on his back instead of his parachute."

Kakaroshitto Report

As they say, parachutists and virgins only make a mistake once...

tenaciousDaniel said:"I was a software dev for trading tools that were used on the stock market. You’re literally writing the code that executed millions of dollars of transactions. I’ll never do it again."ShopWhileHungry replied:"Remember when Robinhood's code forgot to account for 2020 being a leap year which cause a bad outage and many people to lose money."

tenaciousDaniel Report

"Utilities locators!I work in public works and we were called in for a water main break one night. We called J.U.L.I.E and had them send out two guys to start locating and marking all the power and gas lines. They finished up and we started digging. An hour went by and we were using a backhoe, a vac truck, and climbing around the hole looking for the break, etc.This dude's boss comes out and said that the guys missed a few things. He starts painting stuff out, most notably, a huge ass power line that was half a foot from where we already dug. He then tells us "yeah, there's so much power in this line that if you had hit it someone would have definitely died. That new guy is a f**king idiot." Ahhh nothing gives me confidence in a locate company like knowing they missed the most important wire that would have instantly killed us."

Teeter3222 Report

Up-2-It said:"Roof crane operator."BlueFalconPunch replied:"I was an overhead crane operator for a few years. The hardest part of my job was dodging the idiots that would just meander everywhere and then give me the finger when I blew the siren at them.Looking at you millwrights... jackass 1 is directing me to carry a load over jackass 2 +3 then I get 3 fingers when I hit the siren throw my arms up and step back from the controls."

Up-2-It Report

There's no substitute for cordoning off the work area.

Reddit user said:"Nuclear physicist."VeloxFox replied:"Demon Core has entered the chat."ErikTheAngry replied:"Those are such fascinating things. It's incredible that people are willing to experiment with them, knowing that just one little oops means you get to die of severe radiation poisoning."

reddit.com , en.wikipedia.org Report

AnonymousSage509 said:"Server handling sensitive data. I sent a medical confidential file to the wrong client. The company ended up paying millions in damages and me losing my job."fatcattastic replied:"HIPAA violations max out at 1.5 million (per year). And that's like only if you willfully do it and then make no attempt to rectify it within 30 days.So like that must have been some hell of a f**k up."

AnonymousSage509 Report

Been there.

"Lion tamer."

aziatsky Report

IntelligentBug1187 said:"Condom maker."mhe_4567 replied:"One of the only jobs on here that create lives not destroys them."

IntelligentBug1187 Report

It creates and destroys lives.

"Crab fisherman. There’s a reason why a show called “Deadliest Catch” was created to document their work."

JurassicPark9265 Report

parciesca said:"Professional Russian Roulette Player."imgettingfat97 replied:"It pays so well though and benefits are great…"

parciesca Report

I'm thinking whoever selected the stock art hadn't actually read the item closely.

"Bloomberg terminal subscription people. They had an employee release a mistake in financial info to subscribers once for like 3 seconds before it was removed and the employee was instantly fired. People trade so much money based on their info that even to release bad info for a second could cost millions for those trading on that bad info."

Zealotstim , Travis Wise Report

"Tattoo artist for obvious reasons."

Stopsign09 Report

cleetusneck said:"So I do metal roofs. When doing the cap there is no place to fasten a harness. Do not make a mistake with your footing."Massrelay665 replied:"Also a metal roofer. There are anchors that tighten to the ribs of a panel that you can tie off to. You torque down these three screws and it attaches completely to the ribs. OSHA approved. Look into them. We use them all the time when we get to the cap."

cleetusneck Report

"Preparing a blowfish or a chef that has to prepare a blowfish."

flying_alligators Report

"Nuclear Missile Launch Person."

brock_lee , Official U.S. Navy Page Report

Actually, I was in command of a nuclear missile section. Mostly we trained with a cement warhead and an inert motor. I only launched one missile in two years, at a range by the sea. You just don't launch a nuclear missile "by mistake".

"Hostage Negotiator."

ZackyGood Report

Reddit user said:"Minesweeper."FeudalSwede replied:"You can only mess up once there."

ResoluteSupportMedia , redddit.com Report

"Tight rope walking, obviously."

lycanthrope6950 Report

"Belayer in rock climbing. A lapse of attention at a crucial moment can lead to the climber sustaining serious injuries/paralysis/death/shitting themselves."

CrypticC62 Report

"Deep undercover investigations."

theEdjamS Report

"Probably the military? I could be wrong.Or construction workers, if it isn't built right the entire thing could collapse with people and kill them I guess."

Mic_boy1 Report

construction workers don't take an oath that amounts to this job might get me killed

"Professional cage fighter."

reddit.com , Antonio Fucito Report

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Aivaras is a SEO listicles curator. Aivaras is a student trying to pave the way to his career in Marketing and advertisment creation. Also Aivaras like's to watch and play sports, especially football.

Copywriter and content writer on a quest to explore every corner of the world, one country at a time. Fueled by her love for oversized hoodies, weightlifting, Girl in Red, and Arcane, this exuberant Italian tries her best to bring some fun energy to Bored Panda's content. When she's not crafting articles, Melanie's eyes are still glued to a screen — be it binge-watching her favorite TV shows, leveling up in video games, or learning Spanish with her trusty sidekick, Duolingo. Always on the hunt for the ultimate playlist, she scours Deezer to find just the right tunes to listen to while working on her creative projects.

Bridge engineers. I had a friend who was responsible for designing a large bridge in a major city. The city had already made unrealistic promises about the timing and were rushing him to get the design done. Basically telling him to cut corners to fit their deadline - meaning lives would be at stake (not to mention his career, reputation and personal conscience). I have never seen a human being so stressed out. Thankfully he was a person of excellent ethics and continued to fight to get it done right. But I still sweat a little when I drive over bridges knowing this is the reality behind their creation.

The Millennium Bridge in Manchester had to be shut and reinforced because the dumbarse who designed it had forgotten to allow for the resonant frequency of people walking across it. That isn't some obscure bit of physics; it's so well-known that even the army knows to break step when marching across a bridge so they won't stamp it all to pieces, and it's what caused the Tay Bridge disaster in the 1800s. It should be Bridge Drawing 101.

Farming, such a dangerous career.

Amazing how many people didn't understand the description of this thread;

Farming, such a dangerous career.

Amazing how many people didn't understand the description of this thread;