Offshore Injuries- Health and Safety Management Failings

One of the major causes of offshore injuries involves health and safety management failings. Since offshore workers were working away in an open ocean for couple of months they were not able to have the regular health monitoring and regular assessment involving the condition of their bodies. Under the health and safety management failings, monitoring was the most significant failing identified. In addition, audit and review; and planning and implementation were also considered as significant failings.

Being a maritime worker you should be aware of the causes of the offshore injuries so that you could take precaution to lessen the possibility of suffering one even though you can not totally avoid offshore injuries while you were rendering your service to a maritime company. The following were also the examples of the above mentioned significant health and safety management failings: organizing communication, organizing competence, organizing control, organizing cooperation, policy, and a certain percentage was unknown failings.

Upon knowing these failing prior to health and safety which could lead to offshore injuries, there were still complexities in understanding in what instance you could consider a situation as a health and safety management failing. To make it more clear below were example of incidents involving the failings:

Monitoring:

The involved worker tripped over a sea fastening (welding plate) that was wrongly positioned near the door of a tool container. He sustained ligament damage and a twisted ankle. A safety officer had identified the incorrect sea fastening on an inspection before sailing, but the matter was not resolved, showing insufficient monitoring.

Audit and Review:

Two crew members were preparing to move a flange, having discussed the correct method during a toolbox talk. The involved worker decided to try to roll the flange by himself and it fell over, landing on his foot and breaking two toes. The involved worker was a contractor, and the duty holder’s audit and review program did not focus on contractors in sufficient detail.

Planning and implementation:

The involved worker was clearing a blocked section of drill line with an air hose, and when theb lockage was cleared the pipe moved, striking his foot causing multiple fractures.There was no formal procedure for clearing the blocked pipe and, as such, there was insufficient risk assessment for the task. Before the job was started procedures wer accepted, which included those for unblocking the pipe, however hazards were not identified, showing poor planning.

The examples above indicates that injuries could came from any situation, even you were doing the task at the safety procedure there were still certain details that could result to an accident or injury.