On May 1, 2009, a 59-year old dredge operator with 3 years of experience was fatally injured at a dredging operation. The victim was trying to manually guide the wire cable onto one of two positioning winches on the dredge when he became entangled in it.
Best Practices
- Conduct a complete pre-operational inspection of equipment that includes checking winches and cables.
- Install new winch cables to reel in the same direction as the old cable.
- Inspect winches to confirm proper reeling of the cable.
- Assign two persons to perform maintenance tasks on dredges.
- Block equipment against hazardous motion before performing maintenance tasks.
- Label valve bank levers to indicate direction of movement.
- Do not wear loose clothing when working near moving machine parts.
Click here for: MSHA Investigation Report (pdf), Overview (powerpoint), Overview (pdf)