Please note that the purpose of this article is to educate the maritime industry of our products and the solution they can offer.
As a manufacturer of products specific to fall overboard alerting and retrieval, we monitor the news for fall overboard incidents. Just today we read once again about an incident where a fall overboard product may have helped save lives. Many times, when companies research our product, they are amazed it exists and see it as an affordable solution to head off the tragedy of a fall overboard incident. We don’t want to be the maritime industry’s best-kept secret; we want to be top of mind if protecting your employees from fall overboard situations that may concern you.
It was reported today that three persons are missing after two towing vessels collide on the Mississippi River. G Captain online report stated, “The U.S. Coast Guard says watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector New Orleans received a report at 5:37 a.m. (Sunday, January 26th) that the towing vessel RC Creppel and the towing vessel Cooperative Spirit had collided. Four crew members of the RC Creppel were initially reported missing. One person was recovered from the water by a Good Samaritan. The search for the other three is ongoing.
Local media reported that one person was rescued and taken to the hospital where they are in stable condition. The Cooperative Spirit was reportedly transiting upbound on the river when it entered a barge fleeting area and allied with barges before colliding with the towing vessel RC Creppel, the Coast Guard said in a statement. The cause of the collision is under investigation.”
For the full article, visit gCaptain.
When crew members wear a fall overboard alerting device, such as our ALERT Man-Overboard Alarm Transmitter, the automatic water-activated device begins to transmit within seconds that a fall overboard has occurred to the vessel’s ALERT Receiver installed on the boat they just fell off of.
Our products are not to be confused with Emergency Positioning Indicator Radio Beacon (EPIRBs) which are ideal when a person needs to abandon ship. ALERT2 and ALERT418 products work when the abandon ship was totally involuntary, such as a fall overboard induced from a myriad of reasons, a collision from another vessel is one of them.
In the case of the event outlined above the fall overboard alerting would have been just one of many calamities occurring at once. However, ALERT products continue to transmit up to 40 hours. The 418MHz frequency can be heard with a portable direction finder, providing an opportunity to find the FOB before the rescue turns into a recovery.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and survivors and their families of this latest maritime tragedy. Emerald Marine Products is dedicated to alerting, training and recovery of fall overboard situations. We hope that these types of tragedies can be averted in the future