The Marine Safety Forum has published a safety alert regarding an incident in which a crew member lost the end of his thumb.
The incident occurred during the installation of an additional security gate at the top of the gangway. The injured person was holding the gate in position while a second crew member located the bolts. To access one of the securing bolts, the second crew member closed the pilot door without warning, trapping the injured person’s finger between the gate and the pilot door. As a consequence, the injured person lost the top of his right thumb above the first knuckle.
The immediate causes were observed to be:
- Inadequate work planning or programming – the work was viewed as everyday which resulted in an inadequate risk assessment;
- The lack of guards or barriers;
- Lack of communication between the two parties involved in the task – a basic and simple warning that something was going to change would have sufficed and an accident would have been avoided – “watch out, I’m closing the door”.
Recommendations
The importance of adequately assessing risk needs to beemphasized. Though this task appeared innocuous it has resulted in serious injury. Crew should remain alert to memory lapse or lack of awareness. If they had carried out an adequate Job Assessment Safety Process they would have most likely recognised and addressed the hazard.
Source: IMCA Safety Flash
