Commercial Fishing Fatalities and Injuries Described by Linked Vessel Incidents.

Linked information of fishermen injury outcomes and vessel incident information showed that events and settings that involve fatalities are qualitatively different from incidents resulting in only nonfatal injuries or uninjured survivors. Vessel-level approaches for mitigating fatalities, such as ensuring vessel stability, improving navigation/operation decisions, and spotlighting survival equipment policies/rescue priorities could have a significant impact. Work task-specific prevention strategies for nonfatal injuries related to the larger vessels (catcher/processors and processors) and smaller vessels (with pot/trap gears) are paramount. The use of linked information provided in reports can provide a fuller incident picture to advance efforts to improve the working conditions of commercial fishermen.