While putting high-school students to work has obvious benefits, it also holds considerable risks. Each year, more than 70,000 working teenagers end up in the emergency room because of work-related injuries, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Even more worrisome are fatalities: about 70 teens die on the job each year, mostly in farm and retail work. Government agencies hope to cast new light on these statistics; last week the U.S. Labor Department sent tougher child-labor regulations to the Office of Management and Budget for approval.

Is it immaturity? Lack of training? A sense of invincibility? The exact cause is often unclear, but last week’s fatality raises all these questions. Michael Barrios was killed after he climbed atop a mulch-spreading truck and fell in. (The Maryland Occupational Safety and Health department is investigating the death; the landscaping company did not return calls seeking comment.) Even seemingly cushy jobs can be dangerous. In 2000 Adam Carey, 16, of Beverly, Mass., landed a job at a country club. Nobody saw exactly what happened, but at some point Adam ran a golf cart into a deck, fatally puncturing one of the chambers of his heart. “I just assumed when you send a child into the workplace that the employer knows the law,” says Adam’s mother, Maggie, who sued the club’s board of directors and the golf-cart manufacturer. Both companies declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

Public agencies and employers are taking steps to educate parents and kids. The Labor Department this month launched a series of public-service announcements called “Youth Rules!” about what kinds of jobs are appropriate for teens. In Indianapolis, a new pilot program funded by the Accident Fund Insurance Co. takes teenagers to a hospital physical-therapy ward, where they put their arms in slings to feel what it would be like if they had to maneuver with only one arm. “It was extremely eye-opening,” says Eldon Horton, a career counselor who led a recent tour for 45 students. “Kids think, ‘I’ve gotten this far; nothing’s happened to me. I must be pretty invincible’.” Now when they learn about the daily grind, they may learn about human frailty, too.