August 23, 2012 — When NIOSH started investigating injuries to Alaskan seiners a few years ago, they found a common theme. Researchers were able to trace countless instances of crushing, amputation, and drowning back to getting tangled up in the net.
“They get caught up and wrapped. And once they get wrapped, they can’t reach the controls to shut down the winch,” says Chelsea Woodward. Woodward is one of four researchers on NIOSH’s commercial fishing safety team. He serves as an engineer, and it was his job to design a simple tool based on NIOSH’s seiner research.
He came up with a design for an emergency kill switch that would quickly stop the net from winding up. The fishermen who tested the kill switch on their seine boats liked it — and that kill switch is now sold commercially, in a kit.
Woodward says Alaska fishermen are ideal research subjects. They’re willing to collaborate, and provide input on NIOSH’s research and gear designs.
“This is a good place because of the understanding that commercial fishermen have with NIOSH,” he says. “There’s a better understanding that NIOSH is not regulatory. We have their best interests in mind.”
But Woodward says fishermen outside Alaska don’t always understand that NIOSH is a research agency — it doesn’t deal in law enforcement, and it’s totally separate from OSHA, which can hand out fines for safety violations.