Seattle Injury Lawyer Blog

Curt Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer who tracks flotsam says he’s expecting 100 vessels carried off by the Japanese tsunami to arrive on the West Coast in the next couple of years. Several months ago, a 164-foot Japanese shrimping vessel that was swept away by the Tsunami arrived in the Gulf of Alaska (check out our May 1, 2012 blog post). At the time of its arrival, there was much discussion about the risk that this “ghost ship” posed to vessels in navigation. Ultimately, the Coast Guard sank the vessel to prevent it from becoming a hazard to vessels in navigation.

In addition, Ebbesmayer opines that West Coast beachcombers may find floating athletic shoes with human bones as more debris from the Japanese tsunami washes ashore. In a presentation Monday at a tsunami symposium in Port Angeles, Washington told the audience he’s expected 100 sneakers with bones in them. He’s advising anyone who discovers human remains to call 911 and wait for police.

Ebbesmeyer also said He expects the amount of tsunami debris to peak in October and that the debris could attract a number of Japanese visitors to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

In a meeting on Monday, May 21 the Washington State Department of Transportation recommended replacing the Mukilteo ferry terminal with a new facility approximately one-third of a mile east of the existing dock.

In a press release, the department suggested that the new location, known as Elliot Point 2, best addresses environmental concerns as well as inadequate connections between the ferry and other forms of public transportation, and an aging terminal in need of significant repair and upgrading.

WSDOT says construction of a terminal at this site would cost at least $120 million and the legislature says it has identified $90.1 million for the project. The project will apply for additional federal funding once the environmental impact statement is done in February of 2013. Construction would likely begin in 2015.

The Coast Guard suspended its search for six persons near Galveston at 12 p.m., Tuesday. A mayday call came in from the captain of a fishing vessel Sunday, at 1:15 p.m., reporting that the vessel was taking on water. He reported that there were six people aboard who were abandoning ship and getting into an orange life raft. Because of the poor quality of the radio transmission, the name of the vessel was difficult for watchstanders to interpret, and was either Scallywag or Skylark.

The Coast Guard conducted 21 searches, utilizing 10 surface and air assets covering 2,855 square miles, which is larger than the state of Delaware. “The Coast Guard has saturated the search area for the past two days with no success in finding the life raft or any signs indicating that a vessel sunk,” Lt. Julio Gonzalez, command duty officer for Sector Houston-Galveston.

With no new developments or correlating information, the Coast Guard has suspended the active search for the possible missing persons but may resume the search if new information is received.

Ian Jefferds was nervous about the decrepit, 128-foot crab boat from the moment it was towed into the midst of the rich shellfish beds of Whidbey Island’s Penn Cove on Christmas Eve.

The boat was listing and had no propulsion of its own. It was large enough that Jefferds, co-owner of Penn Cove Shellfish, feared the vessel, the Deep Sea, might slip its mooring and swing into his company’s mussel rafts or even the Coupeville dock.

“Everybody in our company and around here saw this as a potential problem from the get-go,” Jefferds said Tuesday.

A man was rescued from a 30-foot motor boat that went up in flames Thursday morning as it floated in the placid blue waters between Bainbridge Island and the Kitsap Peninsula. The fire broke out about 6:45 a.m. after the man piloted his boat, the “Liberty Call,” out of the Brownsville Marina and was heading through Agate Passage, said a North Kitsap Fire Department spokesperson. A friend was following behind in another boat and was able to rescue the man as flames spread through the vessel. But the man was unable to get his dog off the boat, and it died in the blaze. The fire continued burning for some time before crews were able to reach it. Aerial footage shot by KOMO’s Air 4 showed the blaze burning fiercely and a tall column of smoke rising above it as it drifted through Agate Passage. The boat has continued drifting since northward the fire. It is still smoking, but the fire appears to be out. The vessel is considered a total loss.

Recreational boating accidents are the most common cause of maritime injury and death. The National Transportation Safety Board reports that 672 lives were lost in recreational boating accidents in 2010 as opposed to a total of 61 lost in cargo transport, commercial fishing, and commercial passengers combined. It is unclear if the man in this story suffered any physical injuries. However, this case provides an example of where a boater may have a claim against a third party for damages suffered in the blaze. The facts currently available do not make clear what caused the fire, but where a vessel spontaneously bursts into flames, it is generally wise to investigate the cause to determine if there were any defective parts that caused the fire. If the fire was caused by defective parts or equipment, the boater may be entitled to recovery against the manufacturer.

For more information on this story see http://www.seattlepi.com/local/komo/article/Man-rescued-from-burning-boat-near-Bainbridge-3549000.php

There have been multiple headlines in the last few weeks regarding suits against Ride the Ducks arising out of injuries to tour passengers or other drivers on the road.

Yesterday, days into a federal wrongful death trial that was expected to last a month, a $17 million settlement was reached with the surviving families of two killed and others injured on a Ride the Ducks tour in Philadelphia. The families of two Hungarian students killed will split $15 million and eighteen surviving passengers will share in $2 million in the deal.

The Hungarian students, whose group was visiting the U.S. through a church exchange program, drowned when their amphibious sightseeing boat was slammed by an empty sludge barge and capsized on July 7, 2010. Their families filed wrongful-death lawsuits against K-Sea Transportation, of East Brunswick, N.J., which operated the tugboat guiding the barge upriver, and Ride the Ducks, of Norcross, Ga., which operated the tour boat. The tug pushed the 250-foot-long barge into and over the 33-foot-long Duck as it sat idle and anchored in an active shipping lane along its route, sending 37 people into the river about 150 feet from the Philadelphia shoreline. Survivors were pulled from the murky water by firefighters, a passing ferry boat and bystanders who swam from shore. In a video shown on the first day of the trial Monday, one of the students killed could be seen throwing a life jacket to a deckhand who jumped from the boat seconds before the collision and survived. The families of the victims argued the boat companies were rife with unclear safety policies and ineffective training and procedures that caused the crash. K-Sea Transportation and Ride the Ducks blamed each other and the tug pilot who was sentenced in November to a year in prison for the crash. The tug pilot was on his cell phone amid a family emergency, moved to a part of the tug that blocked his view of the river and turned down a marine radio, stifling mayday calls before the allision. He pleaded guilty to the maritime equivalent of involuntary manslaughter.

The Coast Guard rescued three fishermen early this morning after their 37-foot fishing vessel Karanna ran aground on the Chibahdehl Rocks, approximately four miles west of Neah Bay, Wash. There were reports at 3:35 a.m. that the vessel was taking on water and when rescue crews arrived they were unable to pull up alongside the vessel due to the shallow waters. As a result, the fishermen had to swim to the rescue boat and were then taken to shore to awaiting emergency medical personnel.

It was reported that the grounding occurred due to the operator of the vessel falling asleep while transitioning. Fatigue among seamen is a leading cause of maritime injuries. As a result, there are strict Coast Guard regulations prohibiting those piloting vessels from working more than a set number of hours, usually a 12 hours in any 24-hour period. In this case it is unclear from reports what injuries the rescued fishermen suffered or whether the operator’s fatigue was caused by a statutory violation. However, where crewmembers are fatigued due to having worked more than the time permitted, and injuries result from their fatigue, the vessel owner is generally liable for the resulting injuries.