Unfortunately, as common as these injuries are, workers may find that filing a claim based on a back injury can get much more complicated than they thought.  That’s because back injuries can be difficult to diagnose.  In most back injuries, there is no physical evidence of a wound.  Whether it is a sudden back strain from lifting a heavy object, or a back injury caused by years of repetitive stress, there may be no outward signs of an injury like lacerations, cuts, wounds or bleeding.  To make it worse, many back injuries continue to remain undiagnosed even with x-rays and scans.

Besides, maritime employers often find it very easy to blame back injuries on a pre-existing condition.  Back injuries are very prevalent in the general population, and just about every person has suffered a back injury at some point in his life.  Employers can, and do, use this to claim that your injury dates back to before the accident, on even before you were employed.

As a maritime lawyer, I am extremely familiar with such employer tactics.  If you have suffered a back injury, and have trouble filing a claim, contact a neck and back injury lawyer at my firm for a free initial evaluation of your case.

Image Courtesy: Flickr – PerpetualPlum

A neck injury isn’t always as obvious as say, a head injury.  There may be no visible signs of injury from the outside, and very often, the symptoms are very similar to those seen in other kinds of injuries like back injuries.  This means that misdiagnosis of neck injuries is rampant.  Also, remember that a neck injury does not have to involve a sudden injury or accident.  You could suffer a neck injury from repetitive stress over months, or even years of performing the same activity over and over again.

If you’re a maritime worker, look for the following symptoms of a neck injury.

• Pain
• Soreness in the neck region
• Stiffness of the neck
• Numbness
• Tingling sensation
• Persistent headache
• Nausea and vomiting
• Unexplained paralysis in the arms and legs
• Pain in the shoulders
• Lethargy
• Inability to move neck

Doctors aren’t always able to diagnose neck injury for what they are, and for a correct diagnosis, it would help if you explained to your doctor the kind of work that you do.  This will help him pinpoint the cause of your pain more precisely.

If you are an offshore worker with a neck injury, know that you’re not alone.  These are some of the most common maritime injuries that I come across.  Unfortunately, a severe neck injury could prevent you from being able to continue your job.  If you have questions about what this means for you, contact a maritime attorney at my office for a free confidential consultation.

Image Courtesy: Flickr – some of rebecca’s photos

For instance, it’s not unheard of to have a maritime insurance company go digging into a person’s medical history after an accident to see if they can find something that they can use effectively.  I have come across insurance companies visiting hospitals and health facilities that the injured person had earlier been admitted into, just to dig up some dirt on his medical history.

So, if you’ve ever undergone treatment for addiction or drug use, you can be quite sure that your insurance company will sniff out that information, and use it against you when it comes to paying out your claim.  Maritime insurance companies may send their representatives with authorization to sift through medical records in hospitals in your hometown, or any of the places you may have lived.  Minute medical details could be used against you.

The number one piece of advice I would give maritime workers to prevent something like this from happening, is to be absolutely clear upfront about your medical history at the time of employment.

Image Courtesy: Flickr – Vvillamon

If Transocean employees are found to have acted in a manner that contributed to the explosion, then they could face criminal charges. The fact that they could’ve possibly been following orders from the company, will likely not be a defense in this case. Other Transocean employees who have been named as parties of interest include rig installation manager James Harrell, Captain Kurt Kotcha and chief mechanic Douglas Brown. No one from BP has been named as a party of interest yet.
The Coast Guard and Interior Department hearings into the Deepwater Horizon explosion, are continuing. So far, it seems that the panel, which consists of six members, is divided about which part of the rig operations to focus their investigation on. The Coast Guard seems more focused on marine safety, while the Interior Department seems to be looking at the design of the well and the kind of drilling practices that were followed. Soon, the investigators will look at BPs role in the explosion, including how the company directed Transocean to implement the drilling program.

Maritime lawyer Brian Beckcom is a Board-Certified Trial Lawyer whose primary focus is the representation of Jones Act seamen, including tankermen,  galley hands, deckhands, cruise line crews, fishing vessel crew members, offshore workers and other maritime workers in accidents in Texas, across the country and international waters.

Image Courtesy: Flickr -uscglantareapa

In the days since the spill was discovered, lawmakers have appealed to Pres. Barack Obama to waive off the provisions of the Jones Act to allow foreign-flagged vessels to help with the oil spill cleanup effort. Several countries have offered us help with oil spill cleanup efforts, including sending their own foreign-flagged vessels to help with the efforts.

The president has remained noncommittal on the issue, rarely speaking on it. Many sections of the media have devoted valuable space to push for repeal of, what they called an outdated and antiquated law that dates back decades. The Washington Post has come out with a piece strongly supporting any move to repeal the law, and so has the San Francisco Examiner.

These efforts by lawmakers seem to be aimed more at political one-upmanship than any real desire to help with oil spill cleanup efforts. For now, the US Coast Guard Navy ships and others are doing all they can to help with the cleanup, and at this point in time, it doesn’t seem like waiving the Jones Act would do any good.

Maritime lawyer Brian Beckcom is a Board-Certified Trial Lawyer whose primary focus is the representation of Jones Act seamen, including tankermen,  galley hands, deckhands, cruise line crews, fishing vessel crew members, offshore workers and other maritime workers in accidents in Texas, across the country and international waters.

One such employer is tanker company OSG. The company is reportedly trying to get employees to give up their rights to a Jones Act claim, or a claim of unseaworthiness in exchange for what they call a Salary Continuation Plan. Under the Salary Continuation Plan, OSG agrees to pay a Jones act seamen 50% of his basic wages for two months, and all union benefits. In return, the Seaman is expected to agree not to have any surgery after the injury, unless the company gets a second opinion. If the two medical opinions clash, then the seaman would be required to get a third opinion.

Moreover, if the employee recovered from his injuries and became fit for duty within the two-month period, he would receive no compensation.

If he was not fit for duty within two months, the company would offer one of two options.

• The company would either continue paying him 50% of the wages until he recovered fully and reported for duty again, and the worker would be expected to waive off his rights to a Jones Act claim.
• The company would stop paying him compensation, and he would retain his right to sue under the Jones Act.

It’s important for workers to understand that waiving off their Jones Act rights can severely impact their ability to claim damages in the event of a serious injury caused by their employer’s negligence.

However at this point, it’s not clear how the oil managed to reach the Texas coastline. It’s very unlikely that the oil was pushed along by currents. It is much more likely that the tar balls got sucked into a ship’s ballast, or got stuck to a ship’s side as it sailed through the contaminated waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

The good news is that the Coast Guard does not expect more tar balls to begin washing up on our beaches. However, if the worst does happen, and there is more damage to the Texas coast, the Coast Guard has a new post in Texas City to oversee oil spill cleanup efforts in Texas.

Maritime lawyer Brian Beckcom is a Board-Certified Trial Lawyer whose primary focus is the representation of Jones Act seamen, including tankermen,  galley hands, deckhands, cruise line crews, fishing vessel crew members, offshore workers and other maritime workers in accidents in Texas, across the country and international waters.

According to the sole surviving fisherman, the vessel had an engine problem, and was stuck in the path of the barges. They tried all they could to alert the boat crews to their predicament, but were unable to. The barges struck the fishing boat, capsizing the vessel and trapping the fishermen. The impact overturned the fishing boat trapping the man underneath.  Only one of the fishermen survived the accident. He fisherman was able to swim out of the wreckage.

The tugboat crews insist that they did not see the 16-foot motor boat, and were therefore, not able to blow the horn to warn the fishermen in time.

The Coast Guard is specifically looking at whether the barge operator could have prevented this collision. The barges were owned and operated by a company called Serodino Inc.

Maritime lawyer Brian Beckcom is a Board-Certified Trial Lawyer whose primary focus is the representation of Jones Act seamen, including tankermen,  galley hands, deckhands, cruise line crews, fishing vessel crew members, offshore workers and other maritime workers in accidents in Texas, across the country and international waters.

One of the many risks that an offshore platform worker faces is that from underwater waves, called solitons. These waves are generated many miles further out into the ocean, and begin forming deep underwater. They don’t look very threatening on the ocean surface, but deep down below, can muster enough strength to seriously damage oil drilling rigs and pipes. Up until now, the only way to predict these freak waves was by using an equation. However, that could soon change.

A group of geosciences experts have developed smart buoys that will allow offshore platform crews to predict the formation of solitons, at least 10 hours before these waves approach the oil rigs. The system was developed in 2008 by geosciences engineers at FUGROS, a consulting agency. The engineers then tested the system for three months in the Andaman Sea off Indonesia.

The device works by using satellite images to map the sources of the underwater waves. The buoys are placed between the wave and the sources. The buoys can predict not just the salinity of the water, temperature and current flows, but also the speed of the wave, its formation as well as the size of the wave.

The information is received by oil rig crews at least 10 hours in advance. During tests, it was found that crew members had enough time to tighten the moorings and halt drilling until the waves passed without any untoward incident.

The Coast Guard boarded the vessel in the Strait of Juan De Fuca. It was a routine boarding, but an inspection quickly found that the vessel’s master showed signs of being under the influence. The Coast Guard then ordered that the vessels, the STX Daisy, a Panamanian-flagged vessel remain in Port Angeles in Washington. The tanker had been on its way from Olympia, Washington to Qingdao in China. The US Atty.’s office is also investigating the incident.

For maritime attorneys, the catastrophic maritime accident involving the Cosco Busan, is still fresh in memory. The pilot of that ship, it was later found, had been steering the ship under the influence of prescription medication.

Driving under the influence can be serious enough when you’re at the wheel of a passenger vehicle or truck. The risks increase dramatically when you replace motorists and drivers, with ship pilots and masters. The risk of a maritime accident or collision increases substantially when you have a master who’s not functioning to the best of his capabilities.