HAHAHA!

You will be AMAZED WHAT PEOPLE PACK IN THEIR LUGGAGE!!!

Do you think it is easy being in a hot-humid baggage room, slinging bags for a certain amount of hours? The amount of BOXES people pack into, SPAM, Hersheys, heavy food items, personal items is tremendous!

Sometimes im surprised how the plane takes off.

TSA doesnt only screen passengers, if you did not know this.

There's a problem right there. Either your bretheren are getting trained poorly, being told to "sling" bags or they're not using their LEGS to lift them.

I'm pretty certain most cases are the latter, because that's what I see with my own eyes at IAD and ORD international connections and at SMF regular check-in when TSA staff adds or removes bags through the CTX machine.

There are basically three types of injuries.

The first and most common one is poor lifting techniques. TSA is trying to remedy this by educating screeners on proper lifting techniques, but it's all too easy to forget during the rush of a busy period. Screeners should lift bags as if they were boxes and forget about the handles. The problem with lifting bags by the handles is that it's too awkward because of the twisting and turning involved in loading, unloading, lifting and relocating bags of various sizes and weights. Also, the symptoms for injury are very misleading. It's not the sudden pain; it's the gradual deterioration/damage to the muscle over time that results in a sharp pain while either lifting a bag or just getting out of bed in the morning.

I pulled a groin muscle, though I thought I was using proper lifting techniques. My doctor told me I probably was using proper techniques. But she also pointed out that unlike the gym where I know I'm lifting a certain amount of weigh and regulate my effort accordingly, luggage comes in at various times and at various weights. She said I probably do use good lifting techniques when I know I'm lifting a heavy bag. But after that, my muscles relax and if there's a light bag, I probably lift it without much effort. Yet I'm still stressing the muscles even when handling a light bag. What she said I should do is stretch my muscles during periods of inactivity so they stay warmed up and limber. Never heard of that before, but I try to stick to that routine as much as possible.

The second cause of injury comes from poor ergonomics in the design of ETD and EDS machines. Screeners are required to pick up a bag to load it on the machine, pick up that bag to unload it and either carry it to a designated location for turning it over to an airline representative or, if there's an EDS alarm, take it to an ETD table. At the table, the screener may have to lift the bag onto the table in order to search it, then lift the bag off the table and carry it to the designated location for airline handling. So even in cases where screeners are using proper lifting techniques, the poor ergonomic design of baggage screening puts screeners in situations where they may injure themselves. This is why I'm all for an in-line baggage conveyor system where a screener doesn't have to touch the bag except to search for a specific item that's been identified by the CTX operator. It should drastically cut down on the number of injuries.

The third cause of injury comes from plain old accidents. There are a lot of moving parts at an airport. Common injuries result from bag parts hitting screeners and/or bags falling on screeners. There are a lot of carts moving around on the floor, and accidents do happen. In the back, baggage handlers drive around in their tugs, and there is also another potential for accidents. Point is that when you have people and equipment moving around trying to stay within a timeline, you're bound to have plain old everyday accidents.

When there are about 1000 bags on the moving belt in the baggage room, and their flight leaves in 30minutes, there is no time to use proper lifting techniques. Bart has noted the bad ergonomica portion of the injury problems, and that is so within my airport.

Poor design.

How's the view from up there? Allow me to add a dose of reality to your rosey colored utopian perspective:

You're absolutely right about proper lifting techniques and the importance of sticking to the fundamentals. What you do not factor into your criticism is the effort many screeners exert trying moving as many bags out as possible without compromising the integrity of the screening process. Screeners want to do a good job, and nobody wants bags to miss a flight. This is where their zeal overcomes fundamental things like proper lifting techniques. As I pointed out earlier, there are no immediate symptoms when lifting improperly, and this tends to give screeners a false impression that they can get away with cheating on their lifting techniques. Groin injuries, muscle pulls and other injuries are gradual. They don't become evident until either while actually lifting a bag or doing something else completely unrelated to baggage screening such as getting off of a stool or getting out of a car. This gives the misimpression that the injury was caused by getting off that stool or out of the car rather than the fact that it was due to the gradual wear and tear that comes from cheating on proper lifting techniques every day at the airport.

You're right that this requires better training and employee awareness of injuries that come from poor lifting techniques. And I have to credit TSA for trying to increase screener awareness of this topic. However, during the "heat of battle," a lot of that is forgotten as screeners focus their attention on getting as many bags out as possible.