Abstract
A standard of strict aversion to any preventable fatal incident would have to be enacted by any organisation or individual aspiring to take all reasonable steps to prevent death or serious injury in outdoor education. This chapter examines four cases that illuminate how failure to make prevention of death the overriding priority could emerge as a counterfactual cause. The selected cases also throw some light on where a boundary between reasonable and unreasonable measures might be discerned. I argue that whatever standard might appear to be acceptable prior to a tragedy, community responses, and to some extent legal responses, tend to focus on any failures to take reasonable precautions, particularly on the part of those most directly responsible for an outdoor education program. I consider how a standard of strict aversion might differ from standards applied in legal proceedings, and to what extent conforming to published risk management or safety standards could fall short of taking all reasonable steps to prevent death.
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Notes
- 1.
This is consistent with conventional, or text-book approaches to OE safety more generally, for example: “Field instructors and guides are the people most directly able to ensure safety because of their training, experience, expertise, and continuous interaction with participants” (Attarian, 2012, p. 26).
- 2.
3.9 km/h.
- 3.
5.1 km/h
- 4.
1.5 m.
- 5.
12–15 m.
- 6.
The web pages no longer exist, but were partially captured by www.waybackmachine.org, search http://www.britishexploring.org/ExpeditionsProgrammes/SvalbardTragedy.aspx
- 7.
In fairness, it was not intended for that purpose.
- 8.
In contrast, black bears showed no interest at all in human menstrual odours (Rogers, Wilker, & Scott, 1991).
- 9.
The report refers at various times to “trip flares”, although it seems that BSES used, at different times, electronic rape alarms and, on the fatal expedition, devices that triggered a blank shotgun cartridge. As a case study more specific details would have been helpful.
- 10.
See, for example, Murray’s (2015) discussion of coronial recommendations after white water rafting fatalities in Queensland, Australia.
- 11.
This is not an argument about how new technology affects accident rates. That could go either way – for example mobile phone use while driving is dangerous. It is about how any given incident could reasonably have been prevented, and improvements in prevention afforded by improvements in technology.
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Brookes, A. (2018). Strict Aversion to Fatal Incidents as a Standard. In: Preventing Fatal Incidents in School and Youth Group Camps and Excursions. International Explorations in Outdoor and Environmental Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89882-7_3
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