Lessons learned: Lack of situational awareness brings injuries

Following IMCA’s latest Safety Flashes, there are noted two injuries during operations, highlighting the need for continued vigilance and care in everyday activities.

Incident 1: Crew member injured head on girder

Lessons learned: Lack of situational awareness brings injuries — Credit: IMCA

Around eight hours into their shift, a crew member was stowing tools and equipment in the port side aft engine room stowage, and as he bent down to open the lid of the toolbox, he hit the corner of a girder and gashed the top left-hand side of his scalp. He was attended to with first aid treatment to stop the bleeding, clean and dress the wound.

Findings

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The crew member was a very tall person in relation to the limited working space;
The crew member was complacent and lacked situational awareness;
He was not wearing proper PPE (a bump cap);
There was no protective material on the girder, nor were there warning signs or hazard ID tapes on the girder;
There was a lack of viable and safe stowage space in the Engine Room.

Lessons learned

The crew member was a very tall person in relation to the limited working space;
The crew member was complacent and lacked situational awareness;
He was not wearing proper PPE (a bump cap);
There was no protective material on the girder, nor were there warning signs or hazard ID tapes on the girder;
There was a lack of viable and safe stowage space in the Engine Room.

Incident 2: Finger injury when heavy door closed

During a routine inspection of the air conditioning plant room, the engineer caught his sleeve on the latch of the AC room door and due to the lower pressure within the room, the door closed and slammed shut catching the tip of his finger.

He was immediately given first aid, and subsequently transferred to another company vessel for transit to port for further medical check-up including an X-ray.

Findings

He had his sleeves rolled up making snagging more likely;
There was no indication that the AC room door would slam shut because the room was at a lower pressure than elsewhere;
The spring loaded self-closing device on the door was set to slam the door shut due to the lower pressure in the AC room, as it would not close properly under any other setting.

Lessons learned