Marine Safety in Victoria Report 2007-2008 (PDF, 1.3 MB, 72 pp.)

ehavioural problems. The third patient was surfing close to shore when the wind picked up strength
and he was thrown over a dyke and against a parked car. His main injuries were a dislocated shoulder,
a fractured femur and face lacerations. The fourth patient was thrown onto the beach but suffered only
minor chest injuries. The fifth was killed when walking with his kite toward the waterfront in stormy
weather. He was caught by a sudden gust of wind and thrown face first against a wooden pile. The risk
factors for serious injury in these cases were similar to those reported previously: surfing too close to shore;
loss of kite control and a specific wind condition called onshore flow.
Skills and safety training to increase knowledge and practice of safety protocols, avoidance of
overpowering winds and better selection of site and conditions, and the fitting and use of quick release
safety systems (including a release on the foot strap) and helmet wearing all have the potential to reduce
injuries in these wind-powered sports. The introduction of a mandatory certificate of competence has
been proposed for kitesurfing.
Preventing injury in fishing
The activity codes on the hospital admissions dataset (VAED) includes a code for ‘fishing’ but there
are only three sub-codes: rock fishing, other specified fishing and fishing, unspecified. Consequently,
hospitalisations related to fishing from a boat cannot be disaggregated. For ED presentations recorded
on the VEMD, case identification is based on a word search of case narratives but few of the narratives that
contain the search term ‘fishing’ provide more detail about the setting (boat, pier, jetty, river bank etc.).
These weaknesses result in the under-reporting of injuries related to fishing from a vessel.
In 2006/7, there were 2 deaths and 28 reported hospital-treated fishing injuries, the same number of
hospital-treated injuries as in 2005/6. As previously reported both deaths were due to drowning and
neither of the decedents was wearing a PFD. There were few details on the hospital-treated injury cases.
Hospitalisations were mostly fracture cases that occurred in ‘on-board incidents’ and accidents to craft.
Less serious injuries were mainly cutting and piercing by fishhooks, wires and spikes.
Comments on MIR system data quality
Since 2004/5 the frequency of reported commercial and recreational vessel incidents has steadily
increased probably reflecting improved reporting rather than a real increase in incidents. However, the
amount of missing data on some variables remains problematic. Variables that contain substantial missing
data include: incident sub-type for ‘response-only’ commercial incidents; visibility, wind speed, weather
and water conditions for commercial vessel incidents; vessel activity for commercial vessel incidents; and
the role of the injured person, activity of persons onboard and the operator’s licence status for recreational
vessel incidents.
In 2007/8 contributory factors were recorded for 96% of commercial vessel response only incidents and
60% of commercial vessel serious incidents compared with reporting rates of 56% and 51% respectively in
2006/7. This data item was well recorded for recreational vessel ‘response only’ (89%) and ‘serious’ (94%)
incidents. These data provided more useful information on the relative contribution of material, human
and environmental factors to incidents than previous years.
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