Caperucita Roja

The importance of occupational risk in the context of risk evaluation for crew on general cargo ships was noted, for instance in MSC 83/20/3. Presently, the collection of occupational accidents is primarily done by national administrations and no international database is available. Thus, the importance of occupational accidents is investigated by data received from the Norwegian Maritime Directorate (NMD). This database contains information on all reported accidents occurring either in Norwegian territorial waters or on ships registered to Norway (NOR) or in the Norwegian International Register (NIS). Data from the period 1/1- 1997 to 31/12-2006 were used. The database contains reports on both ship accidents and personal accidents happening to crewmembers onboard the ship without jeopardizing the safety of the ship itself. The latter type of accidents will from now on be referred to as personal accidents.

Considering only personal accidents occurring on NOR and NIS registered general cargo ships of 500 GT or above, built after 1981-12-31 and occurring within the time period from 1997-01-01 to 2006-12-31, there were in total 169 personal accidents were one or more crewmembers were injured or killed. The personal accidents resulted in 9 fatalities and 160

representing 2% of the total ship-years of this analysis. The figures are summarized in Table 5-1.

Table 5-1: Number of non-serious injuries, serious injuries and fatalities onboard the 94 NOR or NIS registered general cargo ships in the period from 1/1-1997 to 31/12-

2006.

Ship-years Non-serious injury Serious injury Fatality

500≤ GT <1,000 20.0 2 5 0

1,000≤ GT <20,000 545.7 22 53 3

20,000≤ GT 287.3 38 40 6

Total 853.0 62 98 9

As with individual risk due to accidents involving the ship, the number of crew for each size category is not known. The best figures for number of crew known are the one shown in Table 4-1. The problem of unequal size categories is resolved in the same way as before. The results are shown in Table 5-2.

Table 5-2: Number of crew, the number of ship-years, the number of fatalities due to occupational hazards, the calculated crew exposure and individual risk for general cargo ships of IACS class and NOR or NIS registry, built after 1981-12-31, during the

ten year period from 1/1-1997 to 31/12 2006

500 ≤ GT < 1,000 1,000 ≤ GT < 20,000 20,000 ≤ GT All Number of crew 4 13.4 25 17.1 Ship-years 20.0 545.7 287.3 853.0 Fatalities 0 3 6 9 Crew exposure 160.0 14,657.8 14,365.0 29,182.8 Individual risk 0.0 2.0·10-4 _4.2·10-4 _3.1·10-4

The individual risk due to occupational hazards is shown in Figure 5-1, along with 95 % confidence intervals.

0.0E+00 5.0E-04 1.0E-03 1.5E-03 2.0E-03 2.5E-03 3.0E-03 3.5E-03 4.0E-03 4.5E-03 5.0E-03 500 ≤ gt < 1 000 1 000 ≤ gt <20 000 gt ≥20 000 Size, GT O ccu p a ti o n al r isk, F at a li ti e s/p er so n yea r

Figure 5-1: Individual risk due to occupational hazards for general cargo ships of IACS class and NOR or NIS registry, built after 1981-12-31 in the period from 1997-01-01 to 2006-12-31. The stapled line is the mean risk for all sizes, and the thin vertical lines are 95 % confidence intervals. The confidence interval for the 500 ≤ GT < 1,000 size segment has been cut short to maintain the readability of the figure, the upper limit is at 2.3·10-2.

For the occupational risk there seems to be an increasing trend for larger ships. However, as the confidence intervals clearly shows, this trend can easily be explained by mere stochastic variation. The number of ship-years for the smallest size segment is probably too low to give an indication of the occupational risk for these ships. This is partly confirmed by the large span of the confidence interval for this size segment. Based on the data at hand there is no evidence to support the claim that there are fewer or more accidents in either size segment. The individual risk due to occupational hazards is 3.1·10-4, with 95 % confidence limits at 1.4·10-4 _{and 5.9·10}-4_{. Taking the uncertainty of the result into account, it is fair to say that the}

individual risk due to occupational hazards is about equal to the individual risk due to an accident involving the ship.

The personal accidents resulted in 174 injuries. The NMD database is somewhat inaccurate with respect to the severity of the injuries. However, one column includes entries indicating the length of the period the crewmember is dismissed from work after the injury. In this investigation, injuries where crewmembers have been dismissed for 72 hours or more are considered a serious injury. Injuries leading to a dismissal from work less than 72 hours are

Table 5-3: Number of crew, the number of ship-years, the number of serious injuries, the calculated crew exposure and individual risk for general cargo ships of IACS class

and NOR or NIS registry, built after 31/12-1981, during the ten year period from 1/1- 1997 to 31/12. 500 ≤ GT < 1,000 1,000 ≤ GT < 20,000 20,000 ≤ GT All Number of crew 4 13.4 25 17.1 Ship-years 20.0 545.7 287.3 853.0 Serious injury 5 53 40 98 Crew exposure 160.0 14,657.8 14,365.0 29,182.8 Individual risk 3.1·10-2 1.2·10-3 2.8·10-3 3.4·10-3

Figure 5-2 shows the risk of serious injury due to occupational hazards for each size segment, the average risk of serious injury, and 95 % confidence intervals. For the two largest size segments there seems to be no difference between the observed risks. There seems to be a much higher risk of serious injury onboard ships in the 500 ≤ GT < 1,000 size segment. However, as previously pointed out for the risk of a fatality, the sample size is too small to draw a definite conclusion.

The total occupational risk of a serious injury due to occupational hazards is 3.4·10-3, this is about a factor 10 higher than the risk of a fatality due to occupational hazards. The high limit for the 95 % confidence interval is at 4.1·10-3, and the low limit is at 2.7·10-3.

0.0E+00 5.0E-03 1.0E-02 1.5E-02 2.0E-02 2.5E-02 3.0E-02 3.5E-02 4.0E-02 4.5E-02 5.0E-02 500 ≤ gt < 1 000 1 000 ≤ gt <20 000 gt ≥20 000 Size, GT O c c upa ti ona l r is k , S e ri ous i n ju ry /p e rs on y e a r

Figure 5-2: Individual risk of serious injury due to occupational hazards for general cargo ships of IACS class and NOR or NIS registry, built after 1981-12-31 in the period from 1997-01-01 to 2006-12-31. The stapled line is the mean risk for all sizes, and the thin vertical lines are 95 % confidence intervals. The confidence interval for the 500 ≤

A Danish study (Hansen H. L. et al., 2001) on occupational accidents onboard the Danish Merchant fleet covering the period from 1993-1997 give support for the figures presented by the NMD. This study considered 502 ships over the five year period from 1993-1997. The study reports a total of 1993 personal accidents, of which 209 lead to more than 5 % disability and 27 are fatalities. This study reports an overall occupational risk of fatality of 8.6·10-4 and an occupational risk of an injury leading to more than 5 % disability (which for the purposes of this comparison, will be considered as a serious injury) of 6.7·10-3. Though these rates are somewhat higher than what has been found in this analysis (3.1·10-4 and 3.4·10-3 for the fatalities and the serious injuries respectively), the figures are comparable. The risk, as evaluated in the Danish study, is about twice as high as what has been found in this analysis, but in both cases it has been found that the risk of a serious injury is about ten times higher than that of a fatality. The figures in the Danish study are believed to be more accurate, as more exact data on crew exposure were available for this study and the accident data were extracted from insurance data, which implies that the involved parties in an accident has a high incentive for reporting.