swamper

swamper
 n.— «The man killed at an oil rig site in west central Alberta yesterday was a second year apprentice who had only been working for the company three months, say family.…He was what the industry calls a swamper, “the right hand man of the driver,” said Rocky Mountain House RCMP Cpl. Alex Courtorielle. The pair were dismantling the rig and preparing for a move at the time of the accident. The swamper’s job is to hook-up whatever the truck needs to haul.» —“Dead man on the job only 3 months” by Elise Stolte Edmonton Journal (Alberta, Canada) Mar. 21, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

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1 comment
  • Also, in forestry terms in the US, a swamper is the person who assists a chainsaw operator. Typically the swamper will carry gas and oil for the saw and will clear out cut vegetation as the chainsaw operator cuts it. Very common in the wildland firefighting world.

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