Accidents | 22-year-old soldier drowned – Report: Defibrillator had run out of battery

Navy in the case of the soldier who drowned in the exercise in December, several shortcomings in security have been revealed. The matter is clear from the Accident Investigation Center’s (Otkes) report from the reportwhich tells about work accidents that led to death last year.

A 22-year-old professional soldier in the Navy drowned In a littoral fleet exercise on December 30. It was about a routine exercise organized on the Rönnskär trunk road near Porkkalanniemi. The goal was to practice rescuing a crew member from the sea with a Tornio missile boat.

Two During the training, the surface lifeguard took his turn to retrieve the training dummy from the sea. According to the report, the exercise was the first for both soldiers since the surface rescue course.

At the time of the incident, the temperature of the sea water was about two degrees and the wind speed was 12 meters per second.

The first surface rescuer failed to retrieve the doll, and it ended up under the ship. It was decided to move the platform further away, and another surface rescuer was to retrieve the dummy after about 50 meters of swimming distance.

There was a discussion about the trip, but the lifeguard said he could swim the distance.

Military got to the doll by swimming. When he was being pulled back to the ship with a rope, he let go of the doll and showed the distress signal twice with his hands. The exercise was stopped, and the soldier was carefully pulled back to the ship.

According to the report, the rescuer was unable to swim normally and his head sometimes went under the water. He waved his hands several times to indicate his need for help.

One of the ship’s surface rescuers had managed to take off his equipment and got back into the water only four minutes after the first distress call. At the same time, the ship’s rubber boat was launched. The soldier in the water was already unconscious at this point.

He was finally lifted onto the deck with difficulty. The soldier’s suit was cut open, and copious amounts of water came out of it and from his lungs.

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The temperature of the sea water at the time of the incident was about two degrees.

The ship CPR was immediately started on deck and the marine rescue center was called.

However, the matter was not reported to the emergency center until it was known that it would take a helicopter half an hour to get there. Then the ship’s crew called the emergency center and asked for an ambulance to the shore of Upinniemi.

While the ship was traveling towards the shore, the victim was revived with CPR. The electrodes of the defibrillator were also attached to the victim. However, the device did not provide electricity, because the battery charge level was too low.

According to the Navy, charging or changing the defibrillator’s batteries is not the responsibility of the ship, but of the Military Medical Center, which maintains the devices annually.

First aid was on the shore opposite the ship, and the soldier’s resuscitation continued. He was taken by helicopter to the hospital, where he died five days later, on January 4.

Afterwards it was discovered that the suit of the dead lifeguard was missing a drain valve, so cold water could collect inside the suit. The investigation did not find out why the valve was missing.

Surface rescuers should check the functionality of the drain valve themselves. According to the Otkes report, there was no specific routine or checklist for checking equipment.

According to the report, the soldier was also wearing a suit that was too big. It made swimming difficult. When water got inside the suit, it ran into the shoes and legs.

I took it the conclusion was that safety has not been sufficiently ensured in surface rescue operations. Examples of this include a wrong-sized and defective suit and an unusable pacemaker.

“Dangers related to methods of operation have not been assessed or identified. In surface rescue exercises, too much emphasis is placed on personal responsibility,” the report states.

In addition, the report states that there is a “culture of survival and commitment to the task” prevailing in the Defense Forces, which may weaken safety if, for example, tasks are not understood to be interrupted in time in exceptional circumstances.

After the accident, the Norwegian Navy drafted a new order on precautions for surface rescue exercises, which aims to take into account the shortcomings presented by Otkes.

In the defense forces another fatal work accident also occurred last year.

At the summer congress of the NATO Reserve Officers Association held in June, a 78-year-old Dutch retired reservist staggered and fell From the three-meter-high platform in the Santahamina garrison area to the concrete floor.

According to the Otkes report, a total of 23 people, all men, died in work accidents last year. The most deaths were in the agriculture and forestry sector. The most common type of accident that resulted in death was falling under a heavy load or object in a work situation.

In the long term, however, the number of fatal work accidents has decreased significantly in Finland, Otkes states in its press release.