Types of boating emergency

Transcript

[Music]

[Text on screen: Be Boatwise. There are NO second chances. Dangers of Carbon Monoxide.]

[Visual: A boat on the water moving towards the viewer.]

Narrator: The budding lifestyle brings plenty of rewards but it's not without some elements of risk both by their nature as sealed vessels good at keeping water on the outside but equally good at keeping things like unwanted gasses inside.

[Visual: Exhaust fumes from an outboard of a boat at a boat ramp and an image of a molecule.]

[Text on screen: Carbon Monoxide CO.]

Narrator: The most dangerous of these is carbon monoxide a colourless, odorless, poisonous gas produced whenever something burns.

[Visual: Professor David Smart. Chief, Hyperbaric Unit, Royal Hobart Hospital talking to camera].

[Text on screen: MAST. Marine and Safey Tasmania. Making boating better.]

Prof. Smart: The problem we have with carbon oxide and boating is that it is present as something we can't smell, we can't taste

[Visual: Looking into a boat engine hatch, cutting back to Prof. Smart talking to camera.]

Prof. Smart: and it's produced by internal combustion engines of any sort including diesels, but more likely from petrol engines, and it's also produced wherever you've got a flame, so things like LPS fridges can produce carbon monoxide.

[Visual: A boat dashboard and then looking into internal boat spaces.]

Narrator: CO is about the same weight as air and the gas will fill the internal spaces of a boat typically the places where people will be.

[Visual: Prof. Smart talking to camera]

Prof. Smart: Carbon monoxide is a silent killer, and it substitutes for oxygen in the human body, and in all mammals, and by doing so it tricks the body into thinking you've got oxygen being carried around, when in fact it's a poisonous substance that builds up in your system progressively and it poisons you right through from the blood, with your haemoglobin attaching to it instead of oxygen and stopping oxygen carriage, and to your muscles, your heart, your brain and by the time it soaks right through your system in a large dose, you'll be anesthetised and then finally the whole body gets suppressed and you have a cardiac arrest so you're dying from it.

[Visual: A boat on the ocean moving towards the viewer, cutting to the skipper operating the boat.]

[Text on screen: Carbon monoxide poisoning symptoms:

• Impairment of the thought process.
• Severe intoxication
• Headaches
• Nausea
• Dizziness
• Inability to escape danger
• Collapse & unconsciousness]

Narrator: Early symptoms include an impairment of thought processes and a feeling of slowing down that's followed by severe intoxication and the inability to escape the danger. Tragically victims often don't know they're in trouble until it's too late.

[Prof. Smart talking to camera, cutting to a boat engine.]

Prof. Smart: We've had cases where a petrol engine inside the boat, had a connection between it and the passenger compartment and the fumes built up inside the boat people couldn't smell them eventually they all went off to sleep and the boat was found doing left turns and rescued by police and treated at the hospital.

We've seen other cases where people had an LP gas fridge indoors and it's built up in boat cabin and people have just gone off to sleep and never woken up.

[Visual: A boat on a trailer being launched, cutting to boat on the water.]

Narrator Most of our boats have at least one source of CO the fridge, the engine, maybe a generator.

The critical thing is to make sure that the gas makes its way overboard and doesn't collect in the boat.

[Visual: Three portable generators.]

Narrator: These portable generators are a popular and easy way to get power onboard, but they do need to be used with care. 

[Visual: Three detectors with the skipper operating a boat in the background.]

Narrator: A carbon monoxide detector is a cheap and simple way to protect your crew. Marine specific detectors are available, but whatever type you choose it's better to have one, than not.

[Visual: Prof. Smart talking to camera holding a carbon monoxide detector, cutting to crew in cabin and back to Prof. Smart]

Prof. Smart: They're able to be purchased from most hardware stores for around about forty to fifty dollars and they should be placed where you'd place a normal smoke detector and in boats probably in the roof of the cabin where you have sleeping area and this will trigger and go off at a 70 parts per million in the surrounding atmosphere, or if there's a rapid rise in carbon monoxide.

[Text on screen: Danger. Carbon monoxide. Remember CO is Colourless, Odorless, Tasteless.]

Prof. Smart:  Generally, at 70 parts per million a human would have about 20 minutes of competence to be able to get out of that environment.

Narrator: Carbon monoxide can get trapped inside your boat when traveling so it's good idea to keep some fresh air flowing.

[Visual: A skipper on a boat and rolling up a clear storm cover.]

Skipper: When you drive it into the wind the fumes and exhaust that's coming out of the engine actually sort of sucks up in here, so if you are doing three hours at all like we are today, it's very important that you get fresh air blowing through the cab, lest you might actually expire in here.

[Visual: Prof. Smart talking to camera, cutting to a skipper-less boat with storm covers.]

Prof. Smart: One example, can be from Rottnest Island storm covers up all by the stern storm cover and going slow because of weather and what's happened as turbulence has brought all of the engine fumes into the boat and the people were found unconscious in the Swan River and then had to be resuscitated and brought down to hospital for treatment.

[Visual: A stern drive in the water, cutting to a boat moving on the water.]

Narrator: Tragically there have been fatal cases in other parts of the country in recent times carbon monoxide is a danger that every skipper needs to be aware of.

[Visual: Ian Ross, Recreational Project Boating Officer, MAST talking to camera.]

Ian: It’s a problem that's there and obviously we've had a tragedy recently and that's brought this at this subject up to attention and it's a matter of people being aware of the risks and making sure that they mitigate those risk as with anything with boating you know you just got to be smart about what you do.

[Text on screen: MAST. Marine and Safey Tasmania. Making boating better.]

[Music]

End of Transcript