Crush injuries remain a serious safety risk during routine shipboard operations, highlighting the need for effective risk assessments, clear procedures and strict adherence to safety precautions when working around moving machinery, vehicles and suspended loads.
A safety awareness video outlining how crush injuries occur onboard, their potential consequences and the preventive measures that seafarers and ship operators should adopt. Crush injuries occur when a person or part of their body becomes trapped between moving machinery, equipment or structures. Such incidents can result in severe tissue damage, fractures, limb loss or fatalities.
several common shipboard activities present significant crush injury hazards, including opening and closing hatch covers, operating gantry cranes, positioning wheeled cargo, working near suspended loads and passing through power-operated watertight doors.
Key safety recommendations
To preventing crush injuries requires a combination of effective planning, appropriate safeguards and strict compliance with established procedures.
The campaign highlights several preventive measures:
- Risk assessments and toolbox talks: Conduct assessments and safety briefings before operations involving potential crush hazards.
- Personnel supervision: Ensure a second person or designated safety observer is present during operations involving cranes, gantry cranes or hatch cover machinery to monitor blind spots.
- Hazard identification: Clearly mark dangerous areas, install warning signs and establish barriers to restrict unauthorized access.
- Equipment safeguards: Consider audio-visual alarms for moving machinery and review the accessibility and positioning of emergency stop buttons.
- Hatch cover safety: Never leave folding hatch covers partially open, as hydraulic failure could cause sudden and uncontrolled closure.
- Vehicle handling: Review cargo handling procedures on vehicle carriers, particularly in confined spaces, and ensure vehicle marshals remain visible to drivers and clear of reversing vehicles.
- Moving machinery: Install appropriate guards around moving parts and rails presenting crush hazards, and never attempt to pass through closing power-operated watertight doors.
Procedures alone are not enough
The campaign also highlights the importance of the International Safety Management (ISM) Code, which requires companies to establish procedures, plans and instructions for key shipboard operations affecting personnel safety, vessel safety and environmental protection.
These procedures should clearly define responsibilities, identify personnel authorized to operate equipment and establish appropriate staffing requirements for hazardous tasks.
However, Britannia stresses that having procedures documented in a vessel’s Safety Management System (SMS) is not sufficient unless they are consistently followed in practice.
The campaign also encourages seafarers to report near misses, regardless of their severity, so that companies can identify weaknesses, improve procedures and prevent future incidents.
Ultimately, preventing crush injuries depends not only on technical safeguards and formal procedures but also on a strong onboard safety culture, where crew members remain alert to hazards, communicate effectively and take responsibility for safe working practices.
Full advisory at the following link.
https://safety4sea.com/britannia-key-safety-measures-for-crush-injury-prevention/