Home >
Serious Injuries
A serious injury is defined as any injury requiring admission to hospital. Serious injuries can represent a large cost to the Australian community, with one study showing that on average a hospital admission from a marine incident costs $339 000 1. For this reason it is important to analyse their circumstances with the aim of reducing overall serious injury incidents.
In 2005 and 2006, there were 315 reported serious injuries on Australian Waters. A breakdown of these is shown below:
|
2005 |
2006 |
2005-2006 Total |
Serious Injuries |
153 |
162 |
315 |
Serious Injury Incidents |
135 |
139 |
274 |
The above table shows that most serious injury incidents resulted in one serious injury.
A breakdown of the incident types in serious injuries is provided below:
The most common incident type in serious injuries is a collision of vessels, making up 15% of all incident types. This is followed by falls within vessels and hit by person or vessel, making up respectively 10% and 10% of all incident types. Compared with the breakdown in all incidents, collision of vessels is under-represented in serious injury incidents while falls within vessels and hit by person or vessel is over-represented.
In contrast to fatalities, serious injuries do not generally occur with the person ending up in the water. Rather serious injuries occur either onboard the vessel itself or through impacts with people in the water, with collisions, hits and falls making up the majority of serious injuries.
Looking at contributing factors in serious injuries, the below graph provides a breakdown of the top 10:
Human factors make up 59% of all contributing factors in serious injuries. This is a greater proportion than is the case in all incidents. Environmental and material factors are under-represented in serious injuries.
Error of judgement is the largest contributing factor in serious injuries, with 17% of all contributing factors. This is followed by the wind/sea state and inexperience, with 13% and 8% respectively of all contributing factors. Excessive speed in particular is over-represented in serious injuries.
In summary, serious injuries could be reduced by reducing hits, falls and collisions involving vessels. Attention should be focused on addressing human factors, such as excessive speed, which are more prevalent in serious injury incidents.
1 Victorian Government's Department of Infrastructure Policy and Planning Division "Default Cost Values for 2005" which identifies costs for a range of vehicle crashes resulting in serious injury or fatality.
