Offshore Deckhand — $5,000,000.00

Case Snapshot

Client

Deckhand, DB 24

Residence

Confidential

Worksite

DB 24, Derrick Barge/Dredge — Oakland Bar Channel / San Francisco Bay, California

Incident Type

Bilateral leg crush injury involving rotating pedestal crane counterweight

Injuries

Right compound femur fracture; shattered left lower leg, including tibia and fibula fractures; significant muscle and tissue loss; PTSD

Surgeries

Eight total — seven during initial hospitalization; one additional surgery to the right leg in April 2018

Key Legal Issues

Jones Act negligence; general maritime unseaworthiness; no Job Safety Analysis; no crane warning system; no walkaround safeguard; unsafe supervisory placement in active hazard zone

Case Result

$5,000,000.00

Case Page Summary

A Jones Act deckhand leg crush injury lawyer can pursue claims when unsafe crane operations, missing safety procedures, unseaworthy vessel conditions, or negligent supervision cause catastrophic harm to a seaman. This case involved a deckhand working aboard DB 24, a derrick barge/dredge operating in the Oakland Bar Channel in San Francisco Bay near the Port of Oakland.

On December 8, 2017, the deckhand was caught between the rotating counterweight of a pedestal crane and the vessel’s catwalk stairway. Both legs were crushed. He was pinned for approximately 40 seconds before he could be freed. Emergency evacuation by fireboat was required to get him off the vessel and to a hospital.

He endured seven surgeries before he was discharged, then later required another hospitalization and an eighth surgery. Today, he walks with a cane, lives with PTSD, and cannot stand for more than ten minutes at a time. The Young Firm pursued this maritime injury case under the Jones Act and general maritime law, alleging that the company placed him in the path of a rotating crane without a proper Job Safety Analysis, without a warning system, and without safeguards to keep workers out of the crane’s danger zone.

A Catastrophic Injury on a Working Dredge Barge

There is nothing abstract about working the deck of a dredge barge. You are on the water, surrounded by heavy equipment, doing physical work that most people will never understand. The machinery does not pause because a worker is nearby. A crane does not know someone is standing beside it.

Deckhands, dredge hands, crane-support workers, and other maritime employees depend on their employers to create safe access routes, identify known hazards, and make sure workers are not placed inside active danger zones. On vessels operating in navigable waters, especially around pedestal cranes and rotating counterweights, those protections are not optional. They are the difference between a safe job and a life-changing injury.

That is what made this case so serious. The deckhand was not injured by a random accident. He was crushed in a foreseeable pinch-point hazard between a moving crane counterweight and a fixed access structure. The risk was built into the work area. The company’s safety procedures should have accounted for it before the task ever began.

Instead, the crane rotated while he was on the catwalk stairway.

What Went Wrong on DB 24

DB 24 was a derrick barge/dredge equipped with a large pedestal crane. The crane sat on a rotating pedestal track, allowing the boom and counterweight to swing in a wide arc around the crane base. During crane operations, the counterweight moved as the crane rotated.

Around the crane pedestal was an access structure: a catwalk, stairway, and handrails. Workers used that area to move around the crane base for maintenance, inspections, and crane-support work. On the afternoon of December 8, 2017, the deckhand was descending the crane track pedestal catwalk stairway during crane maintenance activity in the Oakland Bar Channel.

Then the crane rotated.

The counterweight swung into the access structure zone and trapped him between the moving counterweight and the fixed stairway and handrail structure. Both legs were crushed at the same time. He remained pinned for approximately 40 seconds.

The crew then faced another terrifying problem. They were concerned that if the crane moved to release him, the sudden removal of pressure could cause him to fall from the stairway structure to the deck below. Eventually, he was freed. A fireboat came alongside to evacuate him from the vessel, and an ambulance met him on shore.

That was how the first chapter of this injury ended: with a deckhand being rushed from a San Francisco Bay maritime worksite to a trauma center, both legs destroyed by a crane hazard that should have been controlled.

The Safety Failures Behind the Injury

A strong Jones Act crane injury case depends on showing not just that an injury happened, but why it happened. In this case, the central safety failures involved the absence of basic protections that should have kept workers out of the crane’s swing-radius and counterweight danger zone.

The evidence showed several critical problems.

There was no Job Safety Analysis conducted for the task being performed at the time of the accident. A JSA exists to identify foreseeable hazards before work begins. When a task involves crane maintenance, rotating equipment, a catwalk, and a known pinch point, the hazard analysis should identify where workers may be exposed and what controls are needed to prevent injury.

There was no warning system in place to alert workers that the crane was about to rotate. On a vessel with a pedestal crane, workers near the crane base need a clear way to know when the crane is moving or about to move.

There was no safeguard preventing personnel from being present on the crane walkaround while the crane was in operation. If workers could access a dangerous area during crane rotation, the company needed procedures, barriers, alarms, communication protocols, or other controls to keep them out of that area.

According to the plaintiff’s evidence, a supervisor also brought the deckhand into the hazard area without first confirming that the crane was inactive. That made negligent supervision a central part of the case narrative.

Four layers of protection should have existed: a JSA, a warning system, a walkaround safeguard, and supervisory control of the hazard zone. None of them protected this deckhand when the crane rotated.

The Company’s Defense

After catastrophic maritime injuries, companies often try to shift attention away from unsafe vessel conditions and onto the injured worker. In this case, the company argued that the deckhand had been trained and suggested that his presence in the crane hazard zone must have been his own fault.

That defense strategy is common in Jones Act cases. Rather than admitting that a task was poorly planned or that a vessel operation was unsafe, the employer argues that the injured seaman should have avoided the danger.

But training alone does not eliminate an employer’s duty to provide a reasonably safe place to work. A maritime employer cannot point to general training while ignoring a missing JSA, absent crane warning system, unguarded access area, and supervisory placement in an active hazard zone.

The defense also challenged the damages side of the case. Their economist rejected the total disability framing and argued that the deckhand retained some post-injury earning capacity. That argument attempted to reduce the wage-loss claim by suggesting that a man who used a cane, could not stand for more than ten minutes, and could walk no more than roughly a hundred yards before pain forced him to stop could still find meaningful work.

What the company could not avoid was the reality of the injury. Defense-side medical evaluators did not find malingering. His injuries were real. His PTSD was legitimate. His functional limitations were genuine.

That mattered. The fight was not about whether he had been seriously hurt. The fight was about who was legally responsible for the unsafe conditions that caused it.

How The Young Firm Built the Case

The Young Firm’s investigation focused on the documents, testimony, expert analysis, and missing safety procedures that explained how this injury occurred.

The legal team reviewed U.S. Coast Guard casualty materials and the investigation activity report, which classified the event as a serious marine incident. That classification was important because it reflected the severity of what happened aboard DB 24. This was not a minor workplace accident. It was a significant maritime casualty event involving catastrophic injury aboard a vessel operating on navigable waters.

The team also reviewed root cause materials, vessel logs, incident photographs, and deposition testimony from coworkers and supervisors. The orthopedic surgeon who performed reconstructive surgery was deposed. Economists and life care planning experts were brought in to address the long-term financial impact of the injury, including future medical care, lost earning capacity, and the daily limitations the deckhand would face for the rest of his life.

In maritime cases, the company’s own safety documents often tell the story. Toolbox talks, JSA logs, crane operating procedures, vessel policies, and incident reports can show whether the employer treated the job as dangerous before someone got hurt. Missing documents can be just as important.

Here, what was missing was glaring. There was no JSA for the task. There was no effective warning system. There was no physical or procedural safeguard keeping workers off the crane walkaround during crane movement. The evidence supported the claim that the deckhand was placed in a foreseeable danger zone without the protections that should have been in place.

Jones Act Negligence and Unseaworthiness

The Jones Act gives qualifying seamen the right to sue their employers when employer negligence plays any part in causing an injury. Unlike workers’ compensation, the Jones Act allows injured seamen to pursue damages for pain and suffering, lost wages, future wage loss, disability, and other losses when negligence contributes to the harm.

In this case, the Jones Act claim focused on whether the employer failed to provide a reasonably safe place to work, failed to conduct an adequate safety analysis, failed to warn workers before crane movement, failed to keep personnel out of the crane hazard zone, and failed to supervise the task safely.

General maritime law also allows a seaman to bring an unseaworthiness claim. A vessel may be unseaworthy when the vessel, its equipment, appurtenances, or crew are not reasonably fit for their intended purpose. A pedestal crane operating near an access structure without proper warnings or safeguards can create an unsafe vessel condition. A crew or supervisory system that allows a worker to be placed in a crane counterweight pinch point may also support an unseaworthiness claim.

Together, Jones Act negligence and general maritime unseaworthiness gave the injured deckhand two powerful legal pathways. The employer had to answer not only for what happened in the moment, but also for the vessel conditions and operational choices that allowed it to happen.

Why the Location Mattered

This case happened in the Oakland Bar Channel in San Francisco Bay, an active maritime corridor connected to the Port of Oakland and commercial shipping operations. Dredges and derrick barges regularly work in this area to maintain waterways and support port infrastructure.

The fact that the injury occurred in California did not change the maritime nature of the case. DB 24 was operating on navigable waters of the United States. San Francisco Bay qualifies as navigable water. That meant federal maritime law applied.

The lawsuit was filed in the Eastern District of Louisiana, a federal court that handles a significant volume of maritime litigation. That jurisdictional history mattered because serious maritime injury cases often involve more than one location: where the worker lives, where the vessel operated, where the company does business, where the lawsuit is filed, and which court will decide the legal issues.

For injured maritime workers, location is not just background detail. It can affect evidence, witnesses, experts, legal deadlines, and case strategy.

Key Takeaways for Other Injured Maritime Workers

If a supervisor sends you into a hazard area without confirming it is safe, that can support a Jones Act negligence claim. Maritime employers have a duty to provide a reasonably safe place to work. That duty does not disappear because a worker was trained or because a supervisor gave the instruction.

A missing JSA can become powerful evidence. A Job Safety Analysis is supposed to identify known hazards before the task begins. When a worker is crushed during crane maintenance and no JSA was performed, the missing safety analysis becomes central to the case.

Crane counterweight injuries are foreseeable. Rotating pedestal cranes create known swing-radius and pinch-point hazards. Employers must control those hazards with planning, communication, warnings, access restrictions, and supervision.

Maintenance and cure is not the full claim. Even if an employer pays medical bills or daily living benefits after an injury, an injured seaman may still have Jones Act and unseaworthiness claims for lost wages, pain and suffering, permanent disability, future care, and emotional trauma.

PTSD is a real injury in maritime law. Nightmares, flashbacks, insomnia, anxiety, and psychological trauma after a catastrophic vessel accident can become part of the damages claim when supported by medical evidence.

The company’s own doctors can strengthen the case. When defense-selected physicians do not find malingering and confirm that the injury is real, that can undercut attempts to blame or minimize the injured worker.

About The Young Firm

The Young Firm represents injured maritime workers nationwide, including deckhands, dredge workers, crane hands, tankermen, offshore workers, vessel crew members, and other seamen hurt because of unsafe equipment, negligent supervision, or unseaworthy vessel conditions.

Maritime attorney Tim Young and The Young Firm handle serious injury cases under the Jones Act, general maritime law, and the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act. These cases often require fast investigation, expert analysis, vessel evidence, medical proof, economic loss calculations, and a clear understanding of how maritime companies defend catastrophic injury claims.

If you or someone in your crew was injured on a vessel, crushed by equipment, pinned by machinery, hurt during crane operations, or placed in an unsafe work area, you may have rights under maritime law. The evidence on a vessel can disappear quickly. The sooner you speak with a maritime injury lawyer, the more can be done to protect your claim.

Speak to us today. The call is free, and it may get your life back on track.

Call us today. We can help you take the next step.