We live in an era of unprecedented health and safety. Gone are the days of horrific chimney-sweep work injuries, and pre-industrial revolution mining work accidents, even the nature of warfare has changed. Unlike in the first or second world-wars, a fatal accident in the armed forces is now the exception rather than the rule.
Yet there are still jobs out there in which the danger of a work accident is alarmingly high. Foremost among them is being a fisherman, in fact the chances of a fisherman who is involved in a work accident being alive to make compensation claim are slim because a disturbing proportion of accidents at work for them turn out to be fatal.
The most recent available data on fatal workplace accidents in Britain reveals that fishermen are 50 times more likely to die in an accident at work than other workers in the UK.
Not surprisingly, the majority of these work accident deaths are as a result of drowning, work injury, or asphyxiation. However, more unexpectedly a sizeable proportion of these work accident deaths are attributable to collisions and groundings.
I spoke to one Cornwall fisherman who only just escaped becoming another fishing work accident fatality. He told an amazing story.
�It was last winter.� He said. �I was on the boss�s trawler. We�d had really bad weather. We�d lost our phones, and the communication equipment was down. I�d already been overboard once. We were both dead tired. My legs were like boulders and I was shivering to the marrow. As we were coming into harbour the engines failed. They just spluttered into silence and wouldn�t be resurrected.�
Looking at him as he talks, I can see his weather beaten face has been hardened by a life in which work accidents are the norm.
�We had to anchor. We had no choice. It had long gone dark. There was no one else around. The storm had put the frighteners on them. My boss started panicking because he remembered that he�d left his two dogs in the truck. He�d left it parked on the hard shore when we�d gone out at low-tide. Now the tide was coming in and he realised that if we didn�t get back to the shore he�d lose his truck and his two dogs would drown.�
He scratches his head and pauses enigmatically. �So what did you do?� I ask.
�The boss is older than me � there was no way he�d be able to make it. I�ve got strong arms, and he knows it, so he asked me to swim back to the truck and save the dogs. It was a fair distance and the conditions were rough, it must have been subzero. But I swam back, making it to the truck just as the water was rising to the door.�
It is an extraordinary tale and I can�t help but feel embarrassed that my job sitting at a desk all day doesn�t involve such heroic feats.
He then went on to tell me that he developed severe hypothermia as a result of his gruelling test. In fact, his life was only saved when another local fishermen was alerted by the barking of the two dogs and found him slumped and unconscious at the wheel of the truck.
As a complication, he also developed a lung infection and was hospitalised with his work injuries for nearly a fortnight.
�Life changed for me that day. The illness forced me to take quite a bit of time off work. It gave me time to reflect and I realised I couldn�t go back. I�d already lost a mate in a grounding the year before.�
After a good deal of encouragement from his wife he decided to make a no win, no fee work accident compensation claim. �At first I was sceptical,� He says, �fisherman�s code and all that, but then I realised it was my right. I�d suffered real work injuries and a lot of mental trauma.�
From that moment on life has changed dramatically for him. �The no win, no fee solicitor was really good. Once he�d established the facts, I always felt confident about my injury compensation claim.�
Gone are the nights of high-storms and gruelling fishing expeditions. Instead he is now in a profession less work accident prone � gardening. �Yeah I might suffer a back injury or a Repetitive Strain Injury, or something like that. But it is not likely any work accident is going to be fatal. I�m not about to sucked to the bottom of the deep.�
So does he still see his boss? What about that famous fisherman�s code? Is there resentment towards him for making no win, no fee work accident compensation claim?
�I see him occasionally at the local pub. His insurers paid out the work accident compensation claim so there is not really any ill-feeling there. He even stands me the odd round. He�s just glad he�s got his two dogs.�
And I�m just glad that we�ve still got a fisherman with an extraordinary tale to tell.
Accident Consult Ltd is regulated by the Ministry of Justice and is authorised to undertake regulated
claims management activities under the provisions of the Compensation Act 2006
Further details of the Compensation Act and the work of the Ministry of Justice
can be found at www.claimsregulation.gov.uk.
