201961 One small step for a man – a giant leap for safety?

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.

 

 

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?