A port-based fishing safety instructor network, and the second follow-up study of its effects on fishing fatalties (1995-1999) in Alaska.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Dzugan J
• Description:
  Alaska is a land of superlatives: spectacular wilderness, rich wildlife and bountiful fisheries. If Alaska were a separate nation, it would rank as one of the world's top ten fisheries in terms of value, worth over a billion U.S. dollars a year. Unfortunately, these superlatives also apply to Alaska's extreme weather, great distance from rescue, frigid water and high fishing fatality rate. The Alaska Marine Safety Education Association (AMSEA) was formed as a non-profit organization in the early 1980s in response to the great number of marine related fatalities in the state. It was a grass roots effort, started in Kodiak and Sitka, collaborating with fishermen's organizations such as fishermen's wives, as well as state and federal agencies such as Alaska Sea Grant, Alaska Vocational Technical Center, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), Alaska Observers Center, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH). AMSEA's first priority was to create and maintain a port-based Marine Safety Instructor-Training (MSIT) network that could deliver relevant hands-on marine safety training to Alaska's far flung fishing communities. These port-based MSITs have experience in local fisheries and have credibility and contacts within the local fleet to conduct and facilitate training. MSIT training began with a pilot project in 1983 and since that time almost forty of these week long courses have been held, which have trained over 500 Marine Safety Instructors (MSIs) on most coasts of the U.S.. These MSIs, who work for a diverse group of private and public entities, have in turn trained over 100,000 people in various marine safety courses in Alaska, the U.S. and overseas. The people they in turn train include fishermen, agency personnel, school children and professional mariners. AMSEA's next priority has been to maintain the MSIT network with updated cold water related curriculum, educational productions, and training supplies. In 1991, the USCG required that monthly drills in emergency procedures be conducted on many documented fishing vessels. There are approximately 30,000 of these documented vessels in the U.S. The USCG also required that by 1994, the person conducting these drills be formally trained in the contingencies required during drills. In 1991, AMSEA developed an 18-hour Drill Instructor (DI) course that was USCG approved and also follows the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) Personal Survival Module. The DI class focuses on the use of survival equipment and proper procedures to use during vessel casualties. It is a hands-on, skills based course. AMSEA then used its MSIT network to deliver the DI course to fishermen's home ports. Most of the participants in the DI course were fishermen who could deliver the monthly drills to their own crews. Since 1991, over 4,000 people have been certified by AMSEA to be Drill Instructors in over 370 courses. Most of these DIs reside in Alaska. This group represents more than one drill instructor for every two documented boats in Alaska. This is probably the largest single group of trained Alaskan DIs. Important to this study is the fact that AMSEA maintains a database of names and addresses of those trained in this course. Therefore names of survivors and fatalities can be matched to casualty databases. Other AMSEA trained MSIs in other parts of the nation have developed their own USCG approved courses and are not part of our database of trained DIs. From the period of 1991 to 1999, fishing vessel fatalities in Alaska have demonstrated a downward trend, even though the number of vessel losses stayed roughly the same. The latter half of the 1990s saw a consistent 50 percent drop in fatalities over the first half of the 1990s [Lincoln and Conway 1999]. During the 1990s, however, not only were fishing training requirements established, but survival equipment requirements were also established. The Pacific Northwest has also seen the greatest compliance with safety training and several organizations still offer this training on the Washington and Oregon coasts. The question remains however: has safety training been effective in reducing fatalities? What role if any has safety training played in reducing fatalities? Were people who had safety training at lower risk to be involved in a fatality? What effect has time had between initial training and the time of a casualty on survivability? How could a study answering some of these questions be replicated for others to use? There are many anecdotal stories of fishermen who were helped in an emergency by the knowledge or skills obtained in training. Additionally, it has been observed that there are many fewer vessels lost with all crewmembers, which implies that people are learning how to survive vessel losses. But can this be quantified?
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Acoustics Noise Noise, Occupational Occupational Health Safety Staff Development
• Keywords:
  Emergency Preparedness Fishing Industry Information Dissemination Injury Prevention Marine Workers Risk Management Safety Education Safety Programs Training Grants
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Conference/Symposia Proceedings
• Place as Subject:
  Alaska ; OSHA Region 10
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  373-377
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20053258
• Citation:
  Proceedings of the International Fishing Industry Safety and Health Conference, October 23-25, 2000, Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Lincoln, Jennifer M., Hudson DS, Conway GA, Pescatore R eds. Morgantown, WV: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, DHHS (NIOSH) Publication No. 2003-102, 2002 Oct; :373-377
• Email:
  amsea@alaska.com
• Editor(s):
  Lincoln, Jennifer M. ; Hudson DS ; Conway GA ; Pescatore R
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2003
• Performing Organization:
  Alaska Marine Safety Education Association, Sitka, Alaska
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  19940701
• Source Full Name:
  Proceedings of the International Fishing Industry Safety and Health Conference, October 23-25, 2000, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
• End Date:
  20050630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:ecb057aa237130937ffe30734535a1b0eb1fde7dd7938ad79389e7c5805767d30d82b2c3c6dd32835ebacdb4436c4feee910ec7e2ea8752287fd48816c2376b5
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/181737/cdc_181737_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 72.00 KB ]