Safety Alert: right lower right leg severed in mooring incident

 

German Federal Maritime Casualty Investigation report 6/22 examines an incident where a deckhand’s foot became caught in the eye of a mooring line.  The eye was lying loose on the ground but was already over a bollard.  As the vessel moved, the eye pulled tight on the bollard, severing the deckhand’s foot.

 

The investigation concluded that there was no violation of existing working procedures by any of the people on board.  “Inattentiveness during the routine sequence of operations very likely contributed to the accident in this particular case.” The investigators conclude that the post-accident measures by the shipping company, in particular the use of lines with a smaller eye, would have prevented the accident.  However at the same time it is believed that the risk of hand injuries will generally be increased by such a measure.

 

There are several learning points in the report, but we particularly note these two hugely difficult challenges to managing safety.  Firstly, recognising that it is all too human for any of us to experience inattentiveness in the workplace and that safe systems of work need to account for this.  Secondly, when attempting to engineer out a hazard, the consequential impacts of potential new risks being created need to be considered.

 

Click here…  https://www.bsu-bund.de/SharedDocs/pdf/EN/Investigation_Report/2023/Summary_Investigation_Report_6_22.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=1

 

 

ICHCA International is committed to helping industry to learn lessons fast, learn them once and make sure that they stay learnt. This information is intended to provide all organisations in the cargo supply chain with the opportunity to consider the events and to review and adapt their own health and safety control measures to proactively prevent future incidents.

 

We are grateful to German Federal Maritime Casualty Investigation for providing details. We acknowledge their commitment to sharing learning to benefit others. If you have similar operations, please share this information with managers, operatives and any potentially affected third parties as appropriate. Please also review any of your relevant operations for similar hazardous conditions, risks, and controls. Learning content like this is highly valuable as it is based on real-world experience. We encourage everyone with publishable information about incidents to send it to us, so that we can raise awareness across the whole industry. Please contact us at secretariat@ichca.com; sharing your insight could save a life or prevent injury.