On the day of the accident, she was onboard in the shower when she heard the fire alarm setting off. First Victoria thought of it as a false alarm but then she noticed smoke coming out from the ventilators. ‘I knew exactly where the fire had originated because I had myself stencilled the ventilators on the day before’, she said.
One crew member was significantly burnt as a result of this fire. Later, he passed away.
‘I don’t believe in prayers, but I knew he did, so I said a little prayer for him’.
‘I returned home and I felt restless thinking about it over and again. I didn’t want to go back to sea anymore, but I thought I’d push myself and so I joined my next ship.’
Victoria’s trauma only got worse when she turned up for her next assignment.
‘Every time a fire alarm went off onboard, it reminded me of this accident. I just couldn’t take that sound anymore and I decided to quit.’
This is not a unique story. Many seafarers are destroyed when they experience an accident. Ships operate like a sub-culture far away from the culture of their shore-based head offices. When a small group of seafarers work together on ships, they form a strong bond. Studies in trauma have shown that witnessing an accident that involves someone close to us is much more distressing and traumatic.
On my second ship as a deck cadet, I worked with a second officer who had experienced a collision with a passenger ferry at sea. He had picked non-survivors including small children from the water. During my three months of sailing with him, I rarely saw him going to bed. He used to say that he would hear strange voices when he went to sleep. What is worse, the company kept bringing him back to the same ship. Unfortunately, so little is understood about trauma in accidents. The competing pressures to find a root cause and write a report make us blind.
Little do we think that we are not only dealing with the person who has died or injured but also others around who are in a state of shock and denial. How you approach these people and interrogate them will have a lasting effect on their psyche and wellness and your own reputation. Studies in police services within the UK show that it also affects the wellbeing of the investigators.
When things go wrong, it is natural to ask what happened, how it happened and why it happened but sometimes, this narrow-minded focus on root cause and preventive measures can be detrimental for everyone including your own self.
I’m told there is enormous commercial pressure. I can’t help it.
Think again. If you can’t find a balance between responding to commercial pressure and attending to a traumatised person, why are you even required on-the-scene? ChatGPT can do better in recording a transcript and writing a report.
Latest posts by Dr Nippin Anand (see all)
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Rob Long says
Thanks Nippin. Every time I see the myth of root cause raise I think of Aristotle’s struggle to find the ‘unmoved mover’. Yet, that ‘unmoved mover’ can’t have life or learning because it cannot move, is without passion and e-motion. and, e-motion is the life force of being. The quest for the unmoved mover is the quest for zero and stasis, the yearning for no life.