I lived in an area that had a huge logging industry that eventually became one dude, one machine, and truck that comes and hauls them off to the port. But I was there just after the full mechanization and automation of the industry. So the old timers were still around.

And a lot of those dudes were named things like "three fingered Jack" and "one armed Rick" and "Lefty" ... all from industrial logging accidents for a village of like 500 people.

operating heavy machinery with the potential to kill people really shouldn’t be done by 16-year-olds.

14 year olds can get drivers licenses in South Dakota (source, which of course requires either scripting to view the text or opening the page source).