STEP CHANGE FOR SAFETY GLOBAL SHARING NOV 2013 - SLIPS, TRIPS & FALLS | Page 12

FALLS
What fall hazards can be identified by somebody
walking around a ship really looking for trouble? Are
guard rails available and in place? Once again, is
lighting adequate around ladders and gangways? Are
gangway nets properly deployed? Are properly
approved harnesses available (and always used) by
people working at height, or down hatches, or close to
the ship’s side when railings are removed? More to the
point, are people who might be endangered doing
hazardous tasks, properly briefed in a ‘toolbox talk’,
before they get on with the job? Are they wearing the
correct personal protective clothing? Are ship’s
procedures for personal safety properly thought
through and always adhered to?

Common sense
None of this is exactly ‘rocket science’; all might be
thought of as simple seamanship and common sense,
but the Club’s statistics confirm time and time again the
absence of these precautions, and simple human
carelessness, between them, really do cause
enormous amounts of human misery and heavy claims.
Not infrequently, visits to ships by the Club’s expert
assessors point to potential hazards that have not been
identified and thus are left uncontrolled.
But self-help can be very effective, if those aboard a
ship will recognise that they are in a good position to
develop their own system of hazard identification and
put in place the appropriate controls. Walk around your
own ship with these hazards very much in mind and try
to firstly identify them, and secondly devise the
appropriate controls.
To assist in this process, the Club has developed a
simple ‘Bowtie’ methodology that can easily be
employed in developing effective precautions against
slips, trips and falls; these ‘accidents that are waiting to
happen’, but, with some effort and thought, need not!