The Hidden Cost of Back-to-Back Crew Changes

A roustabout volunteers for a back-to-back. The OIM signs the extension because the relief is delayed by a weather window. Six weeks later the same crew member is named in a hand injury report. The cost was hidden in the rotation, not the incident.

A roustabout on a Gulf of Mexico jackup volunteers for a back-to-back when his relief is fog-delayed in Houma. The OIM approves the extension because the alternative is running the next day's operation one hand short. On day 32 — day 11 of what is effectively the second hitch — the same roustabout catches a hand on a pin during a tubular operation. The injury report names the pin and the procedure. What it does not name is the fact that this crew member was operating on a sleep debt from the tail of the first hitch that had never been cleared. The cost was in the rotation book, not the incident report. The pin only revealed it.