I don't see the benefit to anyone to be critical of a dead man. I know nothing about him, but I am sure he had no idea he was leading a potential death march. We can pin point all kinds of mistakes he made. And we can propose changes in law that may eliminate the potential of these particular mistakes. We can use his mistakes as object lessons for other leaders and be "sure" they never make those same mistakes. But there is something deep inside people that will ensure that other mistakes are made and other people die for other reasons. We can feel confident that we are wise enough to know that we will never make the mistakes made by this poor dead man, yet I am sure everyone of us makes decisions at least once every year that are similar in character but we have been lucky enough to avoid the same consequences. Some of us allow a less experienced kayakers come out with us when they probably shouldn't, just because we drove all the way to the put in and don't want to drive home without paddling and don't feel right about telling someone else to stay home when we want to go out. Some of us go for "short" hikes in the woods without spare cloths or any communications devices because we have gone for hundreds of hikes and nothing bad has ever happened and its just a short hike we don't need an annoying back pack. Some of us drive over the speed limit, because we were busy at home and left late and the kids need to get to their soccer game and we are safe drivers and have the driving record to prove it. Some of us go out for pizza on snowy slippery days because we don't feel like cooking, and we have 4-wheel-drive and anti-lock brakes and see our driving record above. Some of us go paddling even though our VHF battery is not fully charged because someone else must have a fully charge battery and the wind isn't that bad anyway. Some of us bring our neighbors kids sledding without helmets because we didn't wear helmets when we were kids and we survived and their mother didn't send helmets with them anyhow. Only you know the stupid things you do that could come back to bite you. Some of the things we do we don't even realize are stupid because, well, we are stupid. People are very good at rationalizing their need to get out there and set a new record in dragon boat. I have no idea what those reasons were in this particular case, but the drive to do so runs strong in humans. There is very little we can do to keep other people from creating that rationalization. I don't see much point in finding ways to keep other people from being stupid. I have enough trouble keeping myself from being stupid. So, the hard part of this kind of event is not coming up with lessons that others can use to protect themselves, the hard part is coming up with lessons we can use, knowing full well already that going out in a dragonboat with kids without immersion protection in nasty, cold weather is a bad idea. We know in detail the technical mistakes that were made in this case and are smug enough to feel we could teach the dead man something, yet we need to figure out a way that we don't make our own mistakes, yet still allow ourselves to have adventures and enjoy a sport that is risky every time we go out. Does anyone have any advice on how to overcome our own weaknesses? Nick On Feb 23, 2011, at 9:13 PM, Jackie Myers wrote: > Nick Schade wrote: > >> The leader in the dragon boat appears to have given up his PFD and thus his life in an effort to save his charges. To me, this indicates that the students were well served by trusting his leadership. Do we have any indications that the teacher/coaches took this adventure lightly? Obviously they did not take it seriously enough, but that is almost always the case when bad stuff happens. With a little more regard for dangers most accidents would not happen. With a little more regard for dangers most of us would not enjoy kayaking as much as we do. >> > > Imo, this discussion wasn't about a "little more regard for dangers." > > Your response came on comments made not about specific actions of this event but on the comments made by myself and Tony regarding blind trust placed by novices in their instructors and leaders as well as about unqualified, overconfident "trip leaders" who think they are qualified to lead a novice group into such conditions. > PaddleWise was established to be able to discuss these situations where hopefully paddlers can learn from them. > And for anyone who may have missed the specific actions, this is what I got from the information reported here about this incident.... > > Two teachers with thirteen students were out to attempt "to set a new record," in heavy seas, "ice slabs floating freely" on the surface, water temps less than 36 degrees F, gusting wind, heavy seas, no wet suits or dry suits - apparently no means for signaling emergency - rescue coming in the form of a female student who somehow, after capsizing, managed to fight her way 500 meters against "heavy seas," fortunately reach shore and then run 1 km to a store to raise the alarm (contact SAR). > > When I see this, I think safety was not a primary consideration. I don't even think it was secondary. In the case of instructors with students, my opinion is that safety should be the primary consideration, ahead of setting any new records. > As for giving up a pfd to a student who was in trouble, I would imagine the parents of that student would say that was the least the teacher could have done in a deadly situation. I'm sorry it cost him his life. Even sorrier that someone didn't look at the situation beforehand and say "let's go for the record another day." I would like for paddlers to take from this the strength to say "no, I don't like the looks of this and you can call me chicken, but I'm not going." Trip leaders need to be honest in evaluating their abilities in the given situation. If he/she takes a group of students into the above conditions (as I read from the reports), they need to re-evaluate their leadership skills. If they survive. > Jackie > > Nick Schade Guillemot Kayaks 54 South Rd Groton, CT 06340 USA Ph/Fx: (860) 659-8847 http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/ *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Feb 24 2011 - 09:10:44 PST
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