Two crew from the engine room department were on deck, tasked with preparing the manifold for bunkering. As they were laying out a canvas under the bunker manifold, one of the men stepped backwards and slipped from the manifold grating, which did not have a railing.
He fell back towards the deck about one metre below, and instinctively tried to catch himself on the grating. As he did so, his left-hand ring finger was trapped between the gratings, as shown in the simulation photos below. When his weight came on the trapped hand he sustained a cut.
The victim was immediately given first aid. Although minor, this injury could easily have been much worse, even requiring repatriation had the finger been broken.
Image Credits: nautinst.org
Lessons learned
- As in last month’s MARS reports (201957 and 201958), mundane tasks that have always been done a certain way can nonetheless present risks that are invisible to the crew. How would you prevent this accident from happening?
- It is critical to keep one’s situational awareness while performing any task.
- Practising on-site (and on-going) risk assessments to identify all potential hazards at the work site is a key safety behaviour.
- IMO has now defined ‘safety’ as ‘the absence of unacceptable levels of risk’. Is your ship safe?
Source : nautinst.org
