Grooming of deck Cadets – 13                                                                                                

It is very sad that while I am writing so much about the aspects of Cadets’ grooming – deck Cadets in MN – that I have to go and investigate the accident of a Cadet meeting with a deadly fall in the cargo hold……..  Extremely ironical in a sad sense!

What about his dreams of a great future..?

What about his parents’ condition ….?

What about the condition of his colleagues on board?

What happened to grooming at all in his case?

On a cargo ship – barely in his third week, he becomes very confident (in an unsafe sense) … the Bosun would later tell me during the investigation that the Bosun had been humiliated and rejected by so many young cadets and younger ratings & officers about safe actions at sea these days that he had gone into depression and stopped telling them much … his immediate bosses were complaining about the high degree of knowledge shallowness …. And so on … too many complaints about the deceased but neither a ‘system’ nor the ‘industry’ nor the ‘old sea dogs’ telling their stories could stop a life from failing so sadly …..

At the end of the investigation, making reports and explaining it to scores of the connected people – I came to the same conclusion again and again that whatever I have posted so far stands good to the dot and may be taken further for making it more effective in practical deployment but not for a single omission !!

I have no proof in my hands but I would tell the younger Cadets, officers and ratings that the animated characters in the computer games you play fall and jump and crash and yet get up …… in real life even a meter of fall on the steel plates can be debilitating !

Do not lose awareness of the real life impact, do not be adventurous in an unsafe sense – even the greatest of wars are won by great risk analysis, survival techniques and highest levels of situational awareness ….

May the should of the dead rest in peace and his loved ones have the strength to take this shock and loss with a strong heart …. Though it shouldn’t happen to any one else at sea or elsewhere !

Failing to stop wrong is same as facilitating the wrong!!  

 

Safe sailings!