Tag Archives: decaying fish

Toxic fumes from decaying fish contributed to the deaths of two fishermen

kilmore-quays-2-390x285A report has found that two crewmen died after bring exposed to toxic fumes from a trawler’s fish tank. The men were carrying out checks on the FV Oileán an Óir in Killybegs Harbour, Co Donegal, which had been out of use for some time, when they were overcome by the fumes. The report says that although two of the three crewmen on board were experienced, a skipper did not accompany them on the day of the incident in August 2015. As the crew began to test the trawler out, seawater was pumped through the two refrigerated sea water (RSW) fish storage tanks. Although there had been no reported problems with the system in the prior five years, the fishermen noticed that the water was dirty and decided to empty the tanks using a vacuum pumping system. Read this story 15:36