November 28th, 2016 — The Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety is asking New England lobstermen to help design a life jacket they would actually wear every day.
It could be a matter of life or death.
Researchers will visit Maine docks this winter to recruit fishermen to try out different kinds of personal flotation devices, or PFDs, for a month to determine which designs work best for daily use aboard a lobster boat. The lobstermen will be paid to test the life vest, and can keep it for their own use once they are done.
“This isn’t about making lobstermen wear anything, telling them what to do or regulating anything,” said principal investigator Julie Sorensen of the Northeast Center. “It’s about making PFDs comfortable enough that fishermen want to wear them.”
Statistics suggest it will be a hard sell, but well worth it.
In a study published this year, the Northeast Center found only 16 percent of lobstermen reported using a personal flotation device on the job, even though they know the risk of drowning. Falls overboard are the leading cause of workplace fatalities for New England lobstermen, accounting for 16 out of 29 on-the-job deaths from 2000 to 2015, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
None of the lobstermen who died from a fall overboard was wearing a life jacket, records show.