Offshore Roustabout — $1,250,000.00

Case Snapshot

• Client: Offshore Roustabout
• Residence: Alabama Gulf Coast
• Worksite: Gulf of Mexico offshore drilling operation
• Incident: Struck-by accident during drill-pipe drifting operations
• Cause: A weighted drift rabbit became lodged inside a vertical drill pipe, broke free, and struck the worker in the face
• Injuries: Facial and skull fractures, chronic daily headaches, permanent loss of smell, visual disturbances, neck pain, cervical disc bulging, sleep apnea, depression, anxiety, and personality changes
• Treatment: Surgical repair of multiple facial fractures, including frontal bone realignment and stabilization of the orbital and frontal areas
• Legal Issues: Jones Act negligence, vessel unseaworthiness, unsafe work methods, inadequate hazard identification, and disputed maintenance-and-cure benefits
• Projected Future Care: More than $2 million
• Case Result: $1,250,000.00

A Routine Offshore Task Became a Life-Changing Accident

Life aboard an offshore drilling rig has its own demanding rhythm. Crews work long hitches around the clock, handling heavy tubulars, drilling equipment, machinery, and tools in an environment where even routine assignments require careful planning.

Our client had worked offshore since 2011. By November 30, 2015, he was an experienced roustabout assigned to a dynamically positioned semi-submersible drilling rig operating in the Gulf of Mexico.

A DP semi-submersible does not rely on conventional anchors to remain over the well. It uses computer-controlled thrusters, propulsion systems, and ballast controls to maintain its position while the drilling crew performs its work. Depending on the facts of the employment relationship and the worker’s connection to the vessel, crew members assigned to these rigs may qualify as seamen under the Jones Act.

On the day of the accident, our client was performing pipe drifting work the way he had been shown and the way other workers aboard the rig had performed it.

Then a weighted metal tool shot through the bottom of a standing drill pipe and struck him directly in the face.

The impact fractured his frontal bone and orbital area. He required surgery to repair multiple facial fractures, including a displaced fracture involving the inner table of his frontal bone. Although surgeons repaired the structural damage, the consequences of the accident continued for years.

He developed chronic daily headaches, permanent loss of smell, visual disturbances, sleep problems, neck pain, depression, anxiety, and personality changes that affected his family life.

The accident was not simply the result of a tool malfunction. The evidence pointed to a deeper safety failure: the employer had no established procedure for safely handling a drift rabbit that became stuck inside a vertical pipe, even though similar hang-ups had reportedly occurred before.

What Is a Drift Rabbit?

A drift rabbit is a weighted cylindrical tool used to inspect the inside of drill pipe or another tubular. The rabbit passes through the pipe to confirm that the interior is clear and that the tubular is suitable for use.

During the operation involved in this case, the rabbit was placed inside a section of drill pipe before the pipe was raised vertically with a tugger. Once the pipe was standing upright, the crew retrieved the rabbit through the box end, or lower threaded opening, after removing a plastic thread protector.

Under normal conditions, the rabbit would arrive at the lower opening and be removed.

That did not happen on November 30, 2015.

Our client removed the thread protector, but the rabbit was not visible. He checked the deck and the nearby work area. Based on what he had previously seen aboard the rig, he looked into the pipe to determine whether the rabbit had become lodged inside.

It had.

The rabbit suddenly broke free, accelerated down the standing pipe, and struck him in the face.

A nearby coworker witnessed the impact. The company’s post-incident investigation documented the basic sequence: the rabbit became stuck above the lower opening, the worker checked for it, the rabbit released, and it struck him.

What Went Wrong During the Pipe Drifting Operation?

Pipe drifting is a common offshore task, but a lodged rabbit can create a serious line-of-fire hazard. Once the weighted tool becomes suspended inside a vertical tubular, it can release without warning and travel downward with significant force.

A safe procedure should account for that possibility.

The employer’s safety process did not provide the crew with a clear method for:

• Confirming where a lodged rabbit was located
• Securing or isolating the pipe
• Controlling the tool’s potential path of travel
• Establishing a safe exclusion zone
• Keeping workers away from the lower opening
• Mechanically retrieving or dislodging the rabbit
• Stopping the operation and obtaining supervisory assistance

The company conducted a Safety Job Analysis and toolbox talk on the morning of the incident. However, the stuck-rabbit scenario was not addressed.

No written procedure instructed workers what to do when a rabbit failed to appear at the lower opening. The crew was not warned that a lodged rabbit could release as a high-energy projectile. Workers were not given a designated safe position or retrieval method.

Most importantly, evidence indicated that rabbits had become stuck before.

That meant the hazard was not entirely new or unknowable. Prior hang-ups presented an opportunity to investigate the risk, revise the procedure, warn the crew, and prevent the next accident.

Those precautions were not implemented before our client was injured.

Why Was the Employer Potentially Negligent?

Under the Jones Act, a maritime employer owes qualifying seamen a duty to use reasonable care. That duty can include providing proper training, adequate supervision, reasonably safe work methods, and meaningful warnings about hazards associated with the job.

The liability issue was not simply whether our client placed himself near the opening of the pipe. The more important questions were:

• What had the crew been trained to do?
• Had the employer identified the lodged-rabbit hazard?
• Had similar incidents occurred before?
• Did the company provide a safe retrieval procedure?
• Was looking into the pipe a tolerated practice aboard the rig?
• Did supervisors correct or prohibit that practice?

Our investigation found no toolbox talk entry, Job Safety Analysis step, or training document that explained how to handle a rabbit lodged inside a vertical pipe.

Witnesses also indicated that other workers had looked into pipes during retrieval operations without being disciplined or warned that the practice could expose them to a potentially catastrophic struck-by hazard.

When an employer allows an unsafe method to become the accepted way of performing a task, it may not be able to place all responsibility on the injured worker after a predictable accident occurs.

Under the Jones Act’s causation standard, an injured seaman generally must show that employer negligence played some part in producing the injury. The evidence concerning prior hang-ups, missing procedures, inadequate hazard identification, and accepted work practices became central to the case.

What Did the Rig’s Safety Records Reveal?

The safety records showed a significant gap between the operation the crew was expected to perform and the hazards the employer had formally addressed.

Our legal team reviewed:

• The Safety Job Analysis for pipe drifting
• The toolbox talk from the day of the accident
• The company’s post-incident investigation
• Root-cause materials prepared after the injury
• Testimony from coworkers and safety personnel
• Training and operating documents governing the task

The records did not contain a safe procedure for locating or retrieving a stuck drift rabbit.

They did not establish an exclusion zone around the lower pipe opening. They did not address the force with which a lodged rabbit could release. They did not instruct the crew to stop work, lower the tubular, mechanically restrain the tool, or use another controlled retrieval method.

The evidence also indicated that previous stuck-rabbit incidents had not resulted in meaningful procedural changes.

A company cannot eliminate a known risk simply by omitting it from the paperwork. A safety meeting is only effective when it addresses the hazards the crew may actually encounter.

What Injuries Did the Roustabout Suffer?

The immediate injuries included facial lacerations and fractures involving the frontal bone and orbital area.

Surgery was required to realign a displaced portion of the inner table of the frontal bone and stabilize the damaged frontal and orbital regions. An ENT physician later recommended additional treatment, including septoplasty and turbinate reduction.

The longer-term consequences extended far beyond the fractures.

Our client continued to report chronic daily headaches as his most disabling condition. He also experienced:

• Complete loss of smell, known as anosmia
• Visual disturbances
• Neck pain and cervical disc bulging
• Sleep apnea requiring CPAP
• Depression and anxiety
• Mood and personality changes
• Other cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms

His ENT specialist attributed the loss of smell to traumatic neurological injury and concluded that meaningful recovery was unlikely.

His family also described emotional and personality changes that had not been present before the offshore accident.

Head injuries do not always produce a single test result that explains every continuing symptom. Chronic post-traumatic headaches, sensory loss, sleep disruption, visual complaints, and emotional changes can remain disabling even when conventional imaging does not capture the full extent of the worker’s functional loss.

What Did the Life Care Plan Project?

A life care plan projected more than $2 million in future medical, therapeutic, rehabilitative, medication, and home-support needs.

The projections included:

• Medication costs approaching $594,000
• Home-care expenses exceeding $239,000
• Ongoing therapeutic services above $283,000
• Neurorehabilitation services
• Psychotherapy
• Transcranial magnetic stimulation
• Continuing neurological and medical care

A life care plan helps translate permanent or long-term injuries into identifiable future needs. It gives a judge, jury, or opposing party a clearer understanding of what continued treatment may cost over the course of the injured worker’s life.

In this case, the future-care evidence showed that the accident’s consequences did not end when the fractures healed.

How Did Unseaworthiness Apply?

Unseaworthiness is a separate claim from Jones Act negligence.

A vessel owner has a duty to provide a vessel, equipment, crew, and method of work that are reasonably fit for their intended purposes. An unseaworthiness claim may arise when the method used to perform a task is unsafe.

Here, the issue was not limited to whether the pipe or rabbit had a physical defect. The work method itself was important.

The crew was expected to retrieve drift rabbits from standing vertical tubulars, yet no established procedure addressed what should happen when the tool became lodged. There was no defined method for controlling the line of fire, safely positioning the crew, isolating the tubular, or mechanically retrieving the rabbit.

When an unsafe method becomes the normal operating method aboard a vessel, it may support an unseaworthiness claim under general maritime law.

Why Did Maintenance and Cure Matter?

Maintenance and cure generally requires a shipowner to provide an injured seaman with basic living support and necessary medical treatment until the seaman reaches maximum medical improvement.

A full-duty release does not necessarily resolve those obligations when the worker remains symptomatic or continues to require treatment.

Our client was still reporting daily headaches when full-duty paperwork was issued. The circumstances surrounding that release and whether it accurately reflected his medical condition became important issues in the case.

Maximum medical improvement is a medical determination. It is not simply a date selected by an employer, insurer, or claims administrator.

When continuing symptoms, specialist recommendations, or unresolved treatment needs conflict with a return-to-work form, the worker’s maintenance-and-cure rights may require further examination.

Why Did the Gulf Coast Location Matter?

This case involved multiple parts of the Gulf Coast maritime community.

Our client lived in Alabama. The rig operated in the Gulf of Mexico. Much of his specialized treatment occurred in the New Orleans, Metairie, and Houma medical corridor. The case proceeded under federal maritime law in Louisiana.

Offshore workers frequently travel from Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and the Florida Panhandle to work aboard drilling rigs and vessels operating throughout the Gulf.

As a result, witnesses, medical providers, employers, and courts may be located in different states.

A legal team handling this type of case must understand not only maritime law, but also offshore operations, Gulf Coast work rotations, regional medical resources, and the practical challenges of gathering evidence from workers who live across several states.

Lessons for Injured Offshore Workers

A Toolbox Talk Must Address the Actual Hazard

A general safety meeting does not excuse an employer’s failure to address the hazard that causes an accident. If a known problem is missing from the pretask analysis, that omission may become evidence of inadequate planning.

Accepted Work Practices Matter

Evidence that other crew members followed the same method without correction can show that the problem was systemic rather than the isolated conduct of one worker.

Internal Investigations Can Be Important

Company investigations may contain information about the sequence of events, failed controls, missing procedures, and corrective measures. Obtaining the available safety records should be an early priority.

Head Injury Symptoms May Be Compensable Without Perfect Imaging

Chronic headaches, anosmia, visual problems, sleep disruption, depression, anxiety, and personality changes may be connected to a traumatic injury even when no single scan explains every symptom.

A Full-Duty Release May Be Challenged

A worker who remains symptomatic may still have maintenance-and-cure rights. The controlling question is whether maximum medical improvement was legitimately reached.

Semi-Submersible Workers May Qualify as Jones Act Seamen

Seaman status depends on the worker’s duties and connection to a vessel or identifiable fleet. A company’s description of the worker’s status is not necessarily the final legal answer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a missing stuck-rabbit procedure support a Jones Act claim?

It may. An employer may be negligent when it knows a tool can become lodged but fails to create a safe retrieval method, train the crew, or identify the release hazard during the pretask safety process.

Can a DP semi-submersible worker qualify as a Jones Act seaman?

Potentially. Qualification generally depends on whether the worker contributed to the vessel’s function or mission and had a substantial connection to a vessel or identifiable fleet in both nature and duration.

Does a full-duty release automatically end maintenance and cure?

No. Maintenance and cure generally continue until maximum medical improvement. A release may be disputed when the worker remains symptomatic or the document does not reflect a valid medical determination.

Can chronic headaches and permanent loss of smell be compensable?

They can be when qualified medical evidence connects the symptoms to the offshore accident. The absence of a single definitive imaging result does not automatically defeat the claim.

About The Young Firm

The Young Firm represents injured seamen, roustabouts, deckhands, drillers, and other maritime workers in claims involving the Jones Act, vessel unseaworthiness, and maintenance and cure.

Our legal team investigates offshore accidents by examining how the work was actually performed. That can include reviewing Safety Job Analyses, toolbox talks, internal investigations, operating procedures, witness testimony, medical evidence, and long-term care needs.

We represent clients on a contingency-fee basis. Attorney’s fees are not owed unless we obtain a recovery.

Call us today to talk about what happened and what you can do next.

You put in the work. We put in the fight.