What Causes Maritime Noise Induced Hearing Loss? Why do workers suffer hearing loss working on oil rigs and vessels?

Many people will call our office and ask what causes noise induced hearing loss. This is a special type of injury that can occur when you work around loud machinery. Now, people working in maritime environments typically work around generators. They work around engines. They’ll be on the rig floor and all of this equipment produces very loud noise. Noise induced hearing loss occurs in one of two ways. First you can have a very loud traumatic type injury. This is pretty seldom. What you see more often is a progressive over time type injury and this occurs when you’re working around loud machinery for years and years. You may not even notice a difference, but what’s happening medically is your inner ear may be damaged because of the loud noise. This occurs in two ways. The nerve of your ear can actually be damaged or which is very common the hair cells within your ear are damaged because of the loud noise. There’s a simple test that can be done if you think you’ve suffered any type of noise induced hearing loss working in a maritime environment, call our office. Our maritime lawyers can help you.