Conference Spotlights Hazards and Safety Precautions of Fishing Industry
Maine lobsterman Steve Grant suffered crushed bones in his right ankle last summer when his leg became twisted in the thick rope that was quickly running off the stern of his boat. When Grant's foot was snagged, he was thrown onto his back and then into the air upside down, dangling by his ensnared ankle. By sheer luck, the rope spun off Grant's leg but not before the lobsterman had sustained severe damage to his ankle. His son radioed a nearby fishing vessel for help, and Grant was rushed to shore and then to a hospital, where he underwent several hours of surgery to pin his broken ankle back together. The accident took less than 10 seconds.
"I had just enough time to say one prayer, 'Please God, don't let me lose my foot'," said Grant.
Grant's ordeal has been chronicled by Ann Backus, instructor in occupational health in the Department of Environmental Health, who has gathered first-hand accounts of other fishing-related accidents in an effort to raise awareness about the occupational safety hazards of the industry. Backus has helped organize the upcoming International Fishing Industry Safety and Health (IFISH) Conference on October 23 to 25 in Woods Hole, MA. More than 115 people from several countries have signed up to attend the conference, exceeding Backus' hopes for 75 attendees.
A career
in commercial fishing comes with some of the highest occupation-specific
fatality rates in the country. From 1994 to 1998, US fishermen experienced
an occupational fatality rate 38 times that of the national average, according
to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The international community suffers
similar numbers. According to the International Labor Organization, there
are approximately 24,000 deaths and as many as 24 million non-fatal injuries
each year world wide from fishing-related incidents.
"Unlike workers in other industries, fishermen often do not fall within the regulatory purview of federal and state agencies," said Backus. "Their safety and health issues are not given the attention they need by any of us."
The dangers that fishermen face include unpredictable weather, outmoded technologies, and a lack of safety regulations, said Backus. The US governing body that helps protect landlubber employees is the Occupational Safety and Health Organization (OSHA), but OSHA's jurisdiction over fishermen ends three miles out to sea, where international waters begin. The Coast Guard maintains jurisdiction beyond the three-mile mark, but only over reportable accidents, injuries, and fatalities--not over the work environment conditions that may have led to them.
Not that the fishermen as a group are looking for hefty manuals of regulations to be thrown their way. Tensions between fishermen and governmental agencies have simmered for decades over topics such as limits on fish catches.
"Fishermen are very independent," said Backus. "They don't necessarily want regulations, and many believe that the hazards come a priori with the job. However, we believe that fishermen can often reduce their risks by making simple, small changes in the way they work."
Backus, along with David Christiani and Tom Smith of the Harvard Occupational Health Program, colleagues at the CDC/NIOSH Alaska Field Station, and the presenters at the conference, want to alert the fishing industry representatives to safety precautions and injury prevention efforts they can undertake that would help decrease injuries and fatalities and minimize the need for regulation.
For more information, go to www.hsph.harvard.edu/IFISH.
