It was a silent night. While others were resting from the earlier shift, a man walk down the engine area of their barge for his turn to do the checking of the said engine and its current situation which was need to be reported to their head officer as a part of their working. While doing the checking he heard a single tick, not so loud but was audible enough to catch once attention, then it was followed by another and at the very next moment a fire from a fuel tank followed it. It happened very fast that the man was caught by the fire. During those moment his other co-worker were awaken by the screams of help and they immediately went down to see what was the noise was about and saw their co-worker still on fire. Some of them jump on the water while other run off to help the man and to save his life. The next noise was the serene of an ambulance and in few minutes the man who was earlier struggling to escape from the fire was in the hospital and was on the critical condition for suffering third degree burn. Them man was lucky enough that their vessel was situated in the dock for unloading of materials and equipment because of these he was immediately brought to the hospital.
This was an incident that was told us by my father, he was working in a maritime company. You were very much aware that maritime industry was one of those with high level of risk.
The man rendered his service to the company for a long time and was very much aware of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 and his rights and claims in the case of events such as accidents of personal injuries. It was said that he immediately requested to have his maritime lawyer act on his case immediately.
It was very important that as maritime employee that you were aware of the information regarding your privileges and claims . Another thing was the lawyer must be well experience and a quality maritime law firm was an advantage for you to make sure that your lawyer would help you from the beginning of your case till the end and would not refer you to another lawyer. There were several maritime law firm yet consider the performance of each of them to have the best maritime lawyer to defend your case.