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Who Survives? Recent Incidents Offer Insights



Details

  • Personal Author:
    Backus A
  • Description:
    Early in February, the New England Fishery Management Council agreed to establish a safety committee to reassess all of the council's fishery management plans "to ensure they do not ... contain rules that could have unintended consequences." There is merit in the idea that regulations should reinforce - not discourage - safe fishing and the move to study the relationship between regulations and safety is an excellent step forward. However, there is a complementary requirement for fishermen and captains to assess their fishing practices from a safety perspective. Looking at the table "Rescue from Water Incidents," which summarizes recent fishing vessel mishaps, we can see clearly that all of those who survived were rescued from a life raft and most of them had on survival suits. The sequence of events leading up to these rescues did not occur by chance: 1) The survival suits were serviceable and available because the vessel owner had complied with the requirements of the Commercial Fishing Vessel Safety Act (CFVSA) of 1988. The life rafts were serviceable for the same reason. 2) The captain of the Diane Marie, who assisted in the Northern Edge case, knew how to make a rescue. The Coast Guard helicopter pilots and divers studied and practiced over and over again to sharpen their search and rescue skills. 3) In compliance with the CFVSA, the crew members of the Enterprise had participated in "abandon ship" drills two days prior to the vessel's onboard fire and had passed a dockside exam before that. When the fire broke out they knew how to proceed in an orderly, safe manner. [Description provided by NIOSH]
  • Subjects:
  • Keywords:
  • ISSN:
    0273-6713
  • Document Type:
    Text
  • Funding:
    Grant
  • Genre:
    Report
  • Place as Subject:
  • CIO:
    National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
  • Topic:
    Workplace Safety & Health
  • Location:
    North America
  • NIOSHTIC Number:
    nn:20061944
  • Citation:
    Commercial Fish News 2005 Mar; :25A
  • Contact Point Address:
    Ann Backus, MS, Director of Outreach, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston MA
  • Email:
    abackus@hohp.harvard.edu
  • Federal Fiscal Year:
    2005
  • Performing Organization:
    Harvard School of Public Health
  • Peer Reviewed:
    False
  • Start Date:
    20030701
  • Source Full Name:
    Commercial Fisheries News
  • End Date:
    20050630
  • Collection(s):
  • Main Document Checksum:
    urn:sha-512:012cd3d410d29fdd70d3aed6ec60122624d05e814bb2ea021d2260af2b752813ba20db6e09f4025b27f222a13d475c80e516c6189c552ac3ad1ccceca824c2aa
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:
    Filetype[PDF - 246.41 KB ]
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