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Prospective clients are encouraged to contact us for more information,
references, or with any questions.
The Blueoceana Company, Inc., particularly invites you to be in touch whenever
matters of an immediate urgency may arise.
We will assess your situation, stabilize your position and consider our business relationship only after your concerns have been placed on
an even keel.
Our telephone numbers:
(973) 727-8033
(908) 766-0534 (Fax)
Our Address:
The Blueoceana Company, Inc.
Post Office Box 283
Basking Ridge, NJ (USA) 07920
You
can also send us e-mail at:
blueoceana@optonline.net
BULLETIN BOARD
As a service to our website's visitors, we routinely select
newsworthy events occuring within the world's transportation
infrastructure and post accounts of them on this page.
Such events may be legislative or regulatory in nature, may
often be accounts of facts
dealing with ports, vessels,
ocean and surface transportation and will perhaps deal
with associated
safety and security implications.
The Blueoceana Company, Inc., hopes you find such data interesting,
informative and helpful. We must state for the record, however, that given the internet-based sources from which such data
is often derived, the firm cannot be the guarantor of accuracy, nor can it underwrite any party's reliance on such data; for
any reason.
________________________________________________________
CRUSHED! [Malaysia - 2005]
BY A LACK OF COMMUNICATION BETWEEN WORKERS;
BY ALLOWING HIMSELF TO BE PLACED IN A VERY VULNERABLE POSITION.......
_________________________________________________________
Sometimes, Being a Patriot Requires You to Ask a
Lot of Questions.............. Don't Be Afraid To Ask!
________________________________
_______________________________
Happening Too Often? Ask Yourself, Why?
United States: Fall, 2003
United States: Spring, 2004
United States: December, 2004
United States: December, 2004
United States: May, 2005
Holland: March, 2006
Always Travel With Your Load Low, and With Your Load Leaning
Back.... If You Have To Hit Your Brake, You Won't Tip-Over!
_________________________________
U.S.
Marine Cargo Handling Industry Fatal Accidents
(Post-July 2005)
Kim Miles - Tacoma, WA - Aug 13, 2005
Abelino Ponce - Houston, TX - Oct 4,
2005
Lewis Seals - Camden, NJ - Oct
16, 2005
Tyrone Green - Charleston, SC - Dec 2, 2005
Chavon (C. E.) Lewis - Houston, TX - Dec 22, 2005
Juan Perez - Brownsville, TX - Feb 28, 2006
Shawn David Jacobs - Mobile, AL - March 2, 2006
Louis Clairmont - Pt Everglades, FL - March 26, 2006
Unidentified CMV Operator - Seattle, WA- April 4, 2006
Robert Banford - Freeport, TX - April 19, 2006
Michael Allsbrooks - Bayport, TX - May 20, 2006
Nicholas Pitre - Port Fourchon, LA - May 11, 2006
Unidentified CMV Operator - Los Angeles, CA - 6 June 2006
Colin Cramer - Baltimore, MD - 19 July 2006
Jose Correa - Stockton, CA - 10 August 2006
Kasean Robinson - Charleston, SC - 20 Sept 2006
Robert Jennings - Salem, NJ - 25 Sept 2006
John Hardy - Galveston, TX - 11 Oct. 2006
Ramon Leos-Placencia- Los Angeles, CA - 2 Nov. 2006
Yet Another CMV Operator. Same Port Area; Same Night
Ken Eddo - Tacoma, WA - 11 Nov 2006
Jorge Alberto - Port Everglades, FL - 06 January 2007
OSHA proposes $113,400 in penalties against Port Everglades, Fla., marine cargo company
Juy 13, 2007 - OSHA has cited Florida Transportation Services of Port Everglades, Fla., for repeat, willful and serious safety violations
following inspections in January and March 2007. Proposed penalties total $113,400.
In January 2007, an employee suffered a fatal injury after being struck
by a powered industrial truck that was working in tandem with a second vehicle, unloading steel bars from a cargo vessel.
The employee died after being crushed between one of the vehicles and a collision barrier.
OSHA's subsequent inspection found that employees operating industrial
trucks were not properly trained and evaluated, and vehicles were operated while employees walked and worked near them. Repeat
violations were issued to the company for allowing vehicles to be driven near employees standing in front of stationary objects
and for allowing vehicles without functional horns and headlights to be operated near employees. The one serious and two repeat
serious violations resulted in proposed penalties of $28,000.
The second inspection resulted in OSHA issuing four serious and two willful
violations with proposed penalties of $85,400 for operating an industrial truck with a personnel platform not secured to the
lifting carriage, using a personnel platform without a complete guardrail system, not providing personal flotation devices
to employees near the water's edge, and not having a fall protection system for employees working on top of intermodal containers.
"OSHA has inspected this company five times in the past three years and
has found serious safety violations," said Darlene Fossum, OSHA's area director in Fort Lauderdale. "The employer has failed
to keep the workplace free of recognized hazards that were likely to cause death or serious physical harm."
Editor's Note [20 July '07]:
We understand, through informed sources, that Mr. Alberto was, at the instant of this accident,
drawing water from a portable cooler that had been positioned atop one of four pylons that were protecting a high-rise light
standard. In other words, the light standard was within the protective barrier but the water cooler (to which workers
would be naturally drawn) was not.
Hugo Medina Sanchez - Miami, FL - 27 Feb 2007
Blaine Edward Martin - Carroll, PA - 14 March 2007
Blueoceana Company has learned that a negligence suit filed
by the deceased worker's widow, alleges that her husband had been working on the deck of an empty, jumbo open-hopper
barge when he encountered ice while walking, causing him to fall and strike his back and head on the deck.
Joe Aliseo - Seattle, WA - 19 April 2007
John Juan Smith - Houston, TX - 27 April 2007
Vernon L. White - Portsmouth, VA - 13 July 2007
Above, M/V SCI Kiran
Reginald Ross - Oakland, CA - 24 Sept 2007
Below: The Container Vessel STUTTGART EXPRESS
Note from Blueoceana Company: The excerpt
related above, while appearing in a newspaper of record, provides a less than complete picture of facts already disclosed
to authoritative sources we've spoken with. We will refrain, however, from setting out such intelligence until a
more comprehensive construct of the fact pattern is fully available and shown to be accurate.
George Diaz - Freeport, TX - 16 Oct 2007
Jonathan Richardson - Norfolk, VA - 14 Nov 2007
Ed Hall - Oakland, CA - 3 Dec 2007
Krzystof Zarotynski - Camden, NJ - 25 Feb 2008
Kelly Bennett - Davant, LA - 1 March 2008
In conversation with the Plaquemines Parish Coroner, Blueoceana
Company has learned that the fatally-injured worker was an employee of a maintenance contractor aboard the barge at the time
of loading.
He was positioned within the barge while a shoreside, rail mounted crane had its clamshell bucket
resting at the edge of a hatch section. It is surmised by those investigating the accident that nearby waterway traffic
produced a wake that listed the barge enough to displace the bucket, which fell into the hatch, striking the worker and causing
massive internal injuries.
Hayman Sooknanan; James Cason & Rene Dutertre, Jr.
Port Everglades, FL - 20 May 2008
Hugh Britt - Hampton Roads, VA - 11 June 2008
While no press accounts hve been found relating to this accident, Blueoceana Company has learned
that on May 28th Mr. Britt was operating a yard tractor (with a chassis/container attached) at Norfolk International
Terminals. He was allegedly driving on a parallel track (in the same direction) with one of the terminal's straddle carriers.
Reports appear to indicate that Mr. Britt was overtaking the straddle carrier (at its left side) in a straight
line. At an intersection, the straddle carrier apparently negotiated a left turn and struck the yard tractor with serious,
overturning impact. Mr. Britt suffered a lacerated head, a broken arm and several broken ribs. His recovery, we understand,
was troubled by several medical complications of a prexisting nature (diabetes, etc.).
Carl Williams - Mobile, AL - 19 June 2008
Blueoceana Company has learned from sources investigating
this accident, that the deceased worker (25 years old) was a linehandler in the employ of a firm specializing in providing
line services to vessels. The crew of the vessel being docked (M/T GLENROSE [see our insert]) apparently took up on the line
instead of paying it out, tensioning the linehandling boat out of the water.
While accounts indicate
that Mr. Williams was wearing a bouyant life vest, investigators are under the impression that the vest was not securely fastened.
His body surfaced in the river two days after the incident.
Timothy Huff - Mobile, AL - 21 June 2008
Lee Fluker - Savannah, GA - 8 July 2008
Delmont Blakeney - Oakland, CA - 23 Aug 2008
Donald Earl Soule, Jr. - Houston, TX - 3 Sept 2008
Pablo Lopez - Long Beach, CA - 28 January 2009
Raymond Tse - Stockton, CA - 07 February 2009
Gregory Daise - Jacksonville, FL - 19 February 2009
 With the foregoing press account being something less than fully informative,
The Blueoceana Company inquired of our sources in Jacksonville for supplemental data about this tragic accident.
From those sources, we understand that the fatally-injured employee of this non-union company was working as a dockman/hookup
man at shipside at the time of the accident. Also at shipside, a 4o'/20' articulating container spreader
being used was in the process of being fitted-out with wire rope pendants (getting attached to underside lifting padeyes).
We are told that the spreader was suspended at approximately shoulder height during this fit out. The dockmen (including
Mr. Daise) conducting the fit out were obviously under the spreader. Concurrent with the attaching of these pendants, the
spreader was being contracted from its 40' position to its 20' position. The crane operator, apparently, could not
effectively see each of the workers under the spreader during the contracting process, and Mr. Daise is said to have been
facing away from the sliding beam. His head was crushed in a caught-between type of incident.
Larry George - Mobile, AL - 17 March 2009
 Yesterday, International Longshoremen's Association (AFL-CIO) member Larry George
was killed while repairing some coal handling equipment at the State of Alabama's McDuffie Terminal on Mobile Bay.
Mr. George's death is the 2nd of an ILA dockworker at this particular terminal
within the last nine months. On June 21st of last year, ILA member Timothy Huff was killed aboard
the M/V CELERINA in an
apparent asphyxiation (see account above). Both men were members of
ILA Local Union 1984. A press account of yesterday's accident also
appears
above.There are striking commonalities
shared within the
unfortunate deaths of these two workers. Commonalities that all but
scream out for redress and correction.
To begin with, what
you will read above about Mr. George's
death will likely be the last (and most comprehensive) account
about the accident that will be available. The chances of the Alabama State Docks Board
(now known as the Alabama State Port Authority) making
any of the factual aspects of this accident public are very slim indeed.
Like the accident that claimed Mr. Huff's life nine months ago, there
will be no meaningful independent
assessment of cause;
no neutral measurement of compliance with relevant safety
regulations; no issuance of citations for alleged violations
of such regulations; and no taking to task for any of the potential operational
lapses that have resulted in this loss of life. No, there can be
none of that, for, in actuality, there are no enforceable regulations that
have application within this particular
maritime workplace.
Moreover,
there are no Federal or State regulatory
agencies having jurisdiction to even enter this workplace
for the purpose of assessing occupational safety & health conditions.
Whether
change comes from the Federal or State level, this circumstance
must be set right. Should neither act in a timely, moral
way,
the workers themselves should demand OSH-parity through the
vehicle of their labor contract.
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At Other Ports Worldwide
Wayne La Mont - Trinidad - May 28, 2006
Dean Robertson - Adelaide, AU - 13 June 2006
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Fred Vanden Brande -Antwerp, Belgium - 17 August 2006
Alexsandra Khamzatov - Goole, UK - 02 Oct 2006
Benjamin Omagwu & Abdullahi Zakariya - Lagos, Nigeria
- 06 Oct 2006 - [See account regarding Peter Iyoriobhe, below]
Nikolay Cheremnykh - Port Tauranga, NZ - 11 Jan 2007
Link to Maritime New Zealand Report: Click Here
Peter Ross - Melbourne, AU - 19 Jan 2007
Ben Capito & Efren Ladjapailu - Zamboanga City, Philippines
- 20 Jan 2007
Bob Cumberlidge - Western Port, AU - 16 March 2007
Enrico Formenti - Genoa, IT - 13 April 2007
Unidentified Worker - Dover, UK - 17 April 2007
Peter Iyoriobhe - Lagos, Nigeria - 03 May 2007
Israel Rosi - 28 May 2007 - Algeciras, ES
Damodar P.S. Verenkar - Vasco, India - 01 July 2007
Yusuf Ajadi; Akin Ajuwale; Aliu Olaleye & Unnamed Worker - Apapa
Port (Lagos), Nigeria - 14 March 2008
Pham Dinh Tuyen; Pham Din Thuy; Do Van Luan; Dinh Xuan Huong;
Le
Van Tien; Phan Van Ngan & Hoang Van Tuan -
Cai Lan, Vietnam - 15 July 2008
Rudy Trouve - Le Havre, France - 12 August 2008
Giuliano Fenelli (& 2 Unnamed, Predeceased Italian Dockworkers) - LaSpezia,
IT - 21 January 2009
Cheryl Muscroft - Vancouver, BC - 14 January 2009
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