The Nautical Institute draws lessons learned from an incident where a crew member fell over 11 meters from a gantry crane ladder.
A general cargo ship was berthed to load steel products. The ship had a gantry crane which ran on rails on the coaming each side of the holds and was used to lift or replace the hatch covers. A crew member was climbing down from the gantry crane control area to the deck. While proceeding down the ladder, the crew member lost their footing on one of the upper rungs.
They initially fell to a platform on the lower part of the gantry crane, but the momentum from the initial fall carried them over the platform railing and then down over the ship’s side railing before finally landing on the quay.
The ladder in question was equipped with a protective cage and the platform under the ladder was equipped with a railing. Between the platform railing and the ladder’s protective cage there was an unprotected space measuring just over 1m. The crew member fell through this space and down onto the quay. The total height of the fall was just over 11m.
Other crew members saw the fall and rushed to the quay to administer first aid and call for external assistance. An ambulance soon arrived and took the victim to a local hospital. The crew member was seriously injured by the fall, but did not suffer permanent injuries. At the time of the accident the victim was wearing several layers of clothing and a helmet with a chinstrap. The clothing and the personal protective equipment probably mitigated the consequences.
Lessons learned
- This accident again illustrates the benefit of doing the rounds of your vessel with ’new eyes’. Try and see where hazards exist but have always been in plain sight. We become too accustomed to hazards in plain sight; we see them as ‘normal’.
- The victim had used a protective helmet with chin strap. The chin strap, an often-maligned PPE detail, was instrumental in keeping the helmet on their head during the multiple impacts of the fall and may have saved their life.
