Lawyers, investigators, policymakers and safety professionals will be wrangling over the Deepwater Horizon tragedy for years to determine what happened, where fault lay, and who will pay.
By many accounts, Deepwater Horizon was had a relatively good safety record. Its 125-member crew had no serious injuries in the seven years prior to the explosion. In a cruel irony, BP mangers were reported as being on board to recognize the Deepwater crew for its outstanding record on the very day that the explosion occurred.
The sheer magnitude of the disaster and the economic and ecological impact have taken center stage, while the deaths of 11 workers are all too often the asterisk to the story. Their surviving family members and their 156 work colleagues, who narrowly averted death themselves, are in the early stages of an arduous healing process. Coworkers lived through the harrowing and terrible event, many sustaining physical and psychological scars. At hearings and in the media, their personal survival accounts are beginning to be told.
In the first part of a 60 Minutes segment on the disaster, crew member Mike Williams talks about events leading up to the explosion. Production was off schedule by more than a month and $25 million had been lost. This put crews under even pressure to perform. A critical piece of equipment was damaged 4 weeks prior to the explosion, yet this unsettling event did not slow the inexorable push forward. Williams describes a “chest-bumping” argument that occurred on the morning of the fateful day, between a BP manager and crew manager about who would have the final word about process decisions. In his account, the BP manager won the argument and made a process decision, which preceded the explosion.
In the second part of the report, Williams relates his own struggle for survival, as well as the dramatic close call for other coworkers. He talks about being injured in the initial two explosions, the helpless feeling when crawling outside to see the extent of the damage, and the terror of jumping 90 feet into oil-slicked, fiery water and swimming until being rescued.
The dividing line between survival and death was a matter chance and of seconds. Although there had been weekly lifeboat drills, some survivors said that they had not anticipated such chaos, nor had they actually sat in lifeboats or thought through the details of a quick escape. And details could make the difference. One life raft of survivors was tethered to the rig and narrowly avoided being pulled back into the inferno simply because the company’s strict “no knives” policy meant that no one had a knife to cut the rope.
Other survivors and family members shared their experiences on CNN.
Family members relate the experience from their point of view – hearing the terrible news of the explosion and the long, terrible vigil waiting to get official word of whether their loved one survived or not.
Also see: Profiles of the profiles of the Deepwater Horizon Eleven, ranging in age from the youngest at 22 to the oldest at 56 years old.
Prior posts
News update on BP
Engulfed by risks
Posts Tagged ‘deepwater’
Survivor stories: the human aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy
Monday, June 28th, 2010Engulfed by Risks
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010We are following the consequences of the gulf oil disaster with increasing despair. Images of oil soaked birds, dead fish, and the serene Gulf waters transformed from the customary beautiful blue-green to an appalling brown. Our thoughts also turn to the men and women laboring under very challenging conditions to contain the impact of this man-made disaster.
NIOSH has issued the following summary of the exposures facing the recovery workers:
Chemical exposures may include benzene and other volatile organic compounds, oil mist, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and diesel fumes. Physical hazards may include ergonomic hazards, excessive noise levels, sun exposure and heat stress. Injuries may occur due to slips, trips, and falls on slippery or uneven walking and working surfaces. Other safety hazards are associated with the use of tools, equipment, machinery, and vehicles. Biological hazards include possible exposure to biting or venomous insects or other animals. Psychological hazards may include witnessing traumatic injuries or death, inability to help affected wildlife, and fatigue.
You can read the CDC’s 96 page opus on managing the exposures to emergency workers here. (I can’t help but wonder if this particular web-available document is symbolically collecting dust on the shelf, like so many other well-intentioned but rather long-winded safety manuals – the ones risk managers point to with pride during a tour of an industrial plant.
“We’re Hiring!”
BP has hired about 22,000 workers to help with the clean up. I wonder how carefully they screened the new hires. Any rapid ramp up is full of risk; the hazards of hiring on this scale for jobs full of open-ended risk is simply beyond calculation. How many of the 22,000 workers will end up with work-related illnesses and injuries? How would you project the future impact on BP’s workers comp costs? (Perhaps BP is calling the new hires “independent contractors.” Some may well be; most are not.)
Under regulatory scrutiny, BP has provided some form of rudimentory training and the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) for the new workers. But how well is the work supervised? With temperatures routinely in the high 80s and the heat index over 100 degrees, how long can people function in the requisite protective suits, steel-toed boots, gloves, hard hats and safety glasses? What is the impact of raw crude on bare skin and laboring lungs?
Looming Epidemic?
There have already been reports of illnesses among these workers. Law firms have put out the word that at least one of the dispersants used in the clean up may harm workers:
OSHA representatives, Obama administration officials and others have expressed concerns that the oil dispersant chemical Corexit may be the source of the illnesses reported on May 26 by cleanup workers. In May, the EPA urged BP to stop using Corexit because of its toxicity. Corexit is manufactured by Nalco, whose board of directors has strong ties to the oil industry, including sharing at least one board member with BP.
We all feel a sense of urgency on an unprecedented scale as the pristine Gulf waters are sullied by millions of gallons of oil. A huge workforce has been mobilized to help with the clean up. Looming on the distant horizon is the cost of cleaning up the damage to those who are currently engaged in the clean up. It’s something we give only passing thought to today. But the time will come when those costs are as conspicuous and nearly as disturbing as the image of an oil-soaked pelican trying to spread its soiled wings, trying and failing to launch itself into the brilliant blue skies of its Gulf home.
Health Wonk Review and other noteworthy news
Thursday, May 27th, 2010Fresh Health Wonk Review – David Williams has posted a packed & pithy edition of Health Wonk Review over at his Health Business Blog – get your biweekly fill of the best of the health policy blogs.
Social media – Peter Rousmaniere has a roundup of some of the best workers’ comp social networking on the web at Risk and Insurance – we thank him for including us – check out some of the other resources!
Surgical implants – As Joe Paduda is consistently excellent about pointing out, when it comes to work comp medical costs, the devil is in the details. In a recent post, Joe tackles the high cost of surgical implants – a cost that is far higher under workers comp than under group health – and explains payer approaches to resolving the problem, and why they fall short. His advice? “Don’t reimburse based on the invoice. Period.”
Oil spill safety resources
- OSHA – Keeping Workers Safe During Oil Spill Response and Cleanup Operations – extensive resources, including safety guides and fact sheets in English, Spanish and Vietnamese
- Oil Spill Resources – the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences offers information from federal and other sources intended to protect the health and safety of workers cleaning up the spill
- Deepwater Horizon Response website – the official government sponsored site which includes news, updates, and resources
- Live Oil Spill Video Feed – watch efforts to fix the leak
State comp agencies – Roberto Ceniceros posts about struggling comp agencies on his Comp Time blog, a followup to a more in-depth article about how states’ financial woes are squeezing comp systems that appeared in Business Insurance. The recession has decreased payrolls, adding further momentum to the drop in frequency and theoretically resulting in fewer claims to process. But some employers report that state work comp cutbacks are impacting their ability to resolve claims. Some risk managers say that the shortage of administrative judges means that claims take longer to resolve, hearings are delayed, and litigation costs are higher, among other effects.
EBT cards spark suit – In Ohio, the Bureau of Workers Comp is paying workers comp benefits via a Chase debit card. A class action suit has been filed by employees who say that Chase is charging fees if they make more than one withdrawal a month. Many state agencies are using such cards for food stamps and other social programs but we were unaware that they are being used for workers comp. As one of just a handful of monopolistic states, Ohio is the exclusive provider of workers comp, so it makes sense that the state would want to cut administrative costs. Check out the 2004 white paper by the California Commission on Health and Safety and Workers’ Compensation: the Cost/Benefit of Implementing Electronic Deposit for Unemployment and Disability Benefits in the State of California.
Heat wave – If the recent record high temperatures in the northeast are any indicator, it could be a long hot summer. The Texas Division of Workers Compensation reminds employers to prevent heat related injuries and offers a good check list of safety tips to prep for extreme heat.
