Safety Matters

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Originally Posted by Henry Porter

Why is it OK on this forum to be this insulting?

Post 72 appears to close the matter for me.

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Henry. I have no gripe with you. But since you related my post as "insulting" I am somewhat obliged to respond herewith:

I think you need to look at the history. Right boot. Wrong foot.
I don't know why it was ever considered to be acceptable to be rude and/or condescending and/or dismissive or doing so in multiple personalities - constantly making up false motives (eg anti UKA, "intent on mischief making") for those dissenting from the "executives line".
But that is the executive way it seems - You will have to ask such as Graham about that..

For 6 months I have been trying to get people to engage with the issues to get replies comprising a heap of straw men logical fallacies and a barrage of ad hominem attacks (including but not limited to insults in your terminology).

Notice Noels reduction of my post to "belligerent" rather than discussing any content of it - so I returned his compliment in kind. Or do you consider it "ok" for him to call me belligerent(ignoring my post) or calling my post "murk" or some such phrase but not OK for me to call his response emotive and useless (since it is clearly an emotive rather than factual response regarding the delivery not even commenting on the substance and did not further the subject one jot so was useless) so my comment on his was spot on. I commented on his post not him.

The problem with guys like Noel as many others, is he would seemingly rather have an amicable wrong answer to the safety problems rather than an acrimonious right answer. But don't blame me or us for the acrimony: it is entirely possible to have an amicable right answer but only if the process is led by competent people, so headed in the right direction. He seems to think it is more important that what he calls "key people" remain in place(who are the obstructors of change)rather than find some new "key people" who have some qualification and experience and are given authority to clean up the mess: which is the only way forward from here.

But do not write off factual statements as insulting.

It is the essence of why I started this thread. For as long as people wrongly deny the problem, they will never engage the solution.

The chair did indeed write a letter to the coroner in which she stated that the committee were doing all that was "reasonably practicable" as regards safety at that time, as more or less echoed in other words in a statement in fellrunner. Which is simply wrong.

And that (fundamentally) is the reason I started this thread. And demonstrates the fundamental problem with safety in FRA.

There are only three possibilities for why such a statement was made - logically one of the following has to be true. The only question is which?

(a) The chair does not know what safety words mean. There are clearly 101 reasonably practicable things that could be done as well to reduce the likelihood of other deaths: indeed the main questions begged by the previous incident have not been addressed at all, let alone solved) - indeed safety is never done. It is a continuous updating process. So the question has to be asked why is she still determined to head a process knowing she has not got the proper experience or qualification and (as proven first by the fiasco of the july rules) or interacting with the coroner on such matters at all. That is and remains a problem.

OR
(b) The chair does know what safety words mean in which case that letter is clearly an attempt to deceive a coroner. Because there are many other things that can and should be done. And that is outrageous if true.

( It is arguable which of (a) and (b) is actually worse.. both sacking offences in corporate context - a fundamental issue on safety , or indeed most proffessional codes of practice: people should not meddle in things they do not understand)

OR
Therefore the most charitable spin: I could find for the situation, since (a) and (b) are an indictment.

(c) she is living in an alternative universe in which "reasonably practicable" must mean something else from what it does in this world.(which I broadly stated as "cloud cuckoo land") So not an insult at all, just observations derivable from the facts that FRA under her leadership is not doing it should be.

For insults you should consider what the chair said to me and others such as wynn "deluded" "unworthy" and recently "her time was worth more than mine" - or perhaps you prefer Grahams description of me as "narcisstic fantasist intent on self publicity" . That is an insult, so ask Graham why he preferred it to engaging with the facts at that time. And it is those kind of remarks that polarized all of this in the first place. Are you happy for him to insult me?

So What I said was justifiable qualms on a letter that should never have been sent to a coroner, not an insult , an observation on history.

That is why I entered this thread and that is where I will leave it, since I cannot see the personalities as they are in the executive leading to any solution any time soon.

So for me, I am now defecting camps from "hoping FRA will sort it out" to supporting formation of a new body.

As regards post 72 I agree one of the (few) useful posts on this thread, I will always respond in kind to people who engage with the arguments , as I will do now.

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Originally Posted by LissaJous

AI, how do you see all the work that the committee has put into the new rules as anything other than doing this? Yes I know you meant in terms of incidents rather than discussion, but can't you trust the committee to integrate both?

etc..
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Thanks for the constructive reply.

I will try to be brief.

I have no doubt the committee were trying to find a set of rules that answers some of the objections - some of which have been - others have not. It is somewhat ironic that at the very same time the leadership are urging RO to ignore me (us), that most of the changes made to the farcical july rules were first suggested by me (us). Those changes do not go far enough.
But the problem is the presumption that rules are the answer to all. And worse the idea of freezing the rules for a couple of years to "let them bed in" is a complete nonsense. But that is what they have done. Which presumably went to a vote or was it just a murmur of consent misrepresented as "nem con" in the normal way.

The reality is that the only situation in which prescriptive rules cover many of the basis of safety for a task is when the task is essentially the same. So for that reason "scaffolding regs" in the corporate world are very prescriptive - or indeed discus competition risk assessments are relatively similar. But even then they do not answer the question in totality. A lot of safety is about supervision. It is all very well to have a "rule", but that rule alone is impotent on the day. It needs somebody specific allocated sufficiently qualified and experience to do it, and generally a second person to make sure it has been done. A lot of planning and review in hindsight. People are fallible. Safety has to recognise it and allow for it. (not blame them for being human) Just Throwing rules at them is an inappropriate way to manage safety.

When the safety task varies as much as fell races do, rules no longer work at all. They are either so prescriptive they are impossible to apply for most of the races, or they are only a common subset, so not prescriptive enough to cover most of what needs doing. By way of simple example, take the fact that the rules make no mention of road crossings, because only a few races have them. So rules leave a complete void. Which historically has been filled with a mixture of seat of the pants and a random mixture of verbal and written communications and the inquest proves it just is not good enough. It was found wanting.

I cited the cross country precedent preciselyonly because it illustrates the issue. In the context of that race only: a critical issue for emergency planning was access for ambulances, unlocking gates and sufficiently informed marshalls to guide them to the scene. But what an emergency plan means in the context of another race is quite different. So prescriptive rules cannot help. Only the mandate to create a plan, and guidelines listing the types of issue to consider in creating it.

A race through small tracks in deep woods, means that ambulances are out of the question and helicopters cannot get close. So some discussion is needed with mountain rescue (if relevant) about the best ways to retrieve casualties in that area if needs be. An emergency plan needs determining. Where are the helicopter landing sites? Organisations need alerting Who is actually going to ring emergency services - and liase with them , What telephone numbers do marshalls need. It needs thinking in advance. Different for each race. The worst time to think clearly and decide on what to do in incidents is in the cauldron of a disaster.

That void can only be filled by a plan, of what people actually have to do.

And that is the only document that is wanted or needed on race day. Having "rules" in parallel just adds to confusion. Anything of importance must be in the plan, so it is the entire plan for safety without reference to anything else.

It is the lack of a coordinated plan tasking people or considering the right issues that fell apart on that cross country precedent, also at sailbeck if you read the evidence.

Once you think that way, rules are largely replaced by an instruction to plan, people to follow the instruction and guidelines that tell you what to consider in creating the plan. Which is how such as the HSE event safety guidelines are written. Very little can be mandated because the situations are so different.

There is a lot to safety than that. Like the process of establishing of good practice for the guidelines, reviewing incidents and accidents, and all races to have a post race review , dissemination on a wide range of topics, etc etc etc.

I have offered to write some articles for fellrunner, also refused . But it remains a fact that the most likely person to come upon an unconscious runner not breathing after a fall is another runner. Marshalls and the RO whatever training they have, could never get there quickly enough to help. Yet when was any training or communication ever given to runners on what to do (and just as important not to do)on finding a runner after a fall?. So safety is more than a plan it involves EVERYONE. It needs dissemination on a wide range of matters. I offered to write an article on that. That is clearly reasonably practicable to help prevent other deaths. But not according to our chairman it seems. According to her we are apparently already doing what is reasonably practicable. Should I laugh or cry? I will tell you this. Should that unlikely but possible scenario play out resulting in a death, I will publicly name, blame and shame ALL who obstructed that clearly sensible suggestion, or pretended we were already doing enough. We are not.
( PS It clearly needs a rule. "if you fall over you MUST NOT stop breathing". There. Fixed it, in the normal FRA safety committee way, all ready for the 2016 rule update!)

As regards volenti as a defence, it requires the runner has "full knowledge" of the risk he is taking . Implying a support network for a race, clearly reduces the risk that runners think they are taking. So the AW wording serves to (a) alert indeed emphasise the risks. (b) do nothing to imply a support network. See my remarks on "grand raid" . The organisers have made substantial undertakings to runners, and I think those undertakings came back to haunt them in civil court. Am still trying to find out more With the grand raid, my suggestion is you look at the rules even as they now are, and see how much the organiser is apparently offering runners.

The FRA "adviser" has wrongly dismissed HSE safety concepts and ideas on the grounds that the "law does not apply" but it is important to grasp the idea that most safety concepts per HSE is about effective safety management. It is about what is needed to reduce the risk of accidents. Recognising that people and process are some of the keey problems. It is not just a legal obligation to do things , which is the limited view of a hindsight blaming lawyer: it is important because it assists in making people safe. And doing things right in a proper planned way , is clearly evidence of non negligent behaviour

As for bringing serious business to committee meetings. We tried. The chair deliberately obstructed the sensible suggestions we made - or any vote on the matter - like putting a safety qualified person on the safety committee, and the secretary decided not to minute what we said, despite an obligation to minute meetings. So you have a rose tinted view of our committee process. Minutes say what the chair wants them to say. Votes are taken and discussion occurs only on things the chair wants to discuss. Andy W was already on committee but wholly impotent because of that, and the rest of committee did not rally to his support when actively prevented from bringing a sensible motion for vote.

We have offered multiple times to assist the committee on safety matters. All prevented, so inundated with offers or not, they turn them down regardless. Indeed FRA decided to make statements so in opposition to good practice the only safety qualified person on committee found himself having to resign rather than associate himself with such statement.

FRA is dysfunctional, which is alarming when it comes to safety matters, and that is unlikely to change, whilst the present leaders are in office and until a competent person leads the process. Which is unlikely any time soon.

So Enough. Better things to do.
Given up trying to make it better within FRA.

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Originally Posted by OB1

Ian, a request for clarification.
I interpret what you are saying is that ONCE a runner goes through the CP you can pinpoint her/him to within 5 minutes at that CP. Sounds fair.
As opposed to what happens SHOULD a runner go AWOL BETWEEN CPs? Surely in that situation you can't then pinpoint them to 5 minutes? correct? You know to within 5 minutes when they went through the last CP but not where they are?

On the Trigger I bailed out after CP2 (Crowden) whilst climbing L-Edge, way before the safety of CP3 (Higher Shelf Trig) or even before the Marshals at Bleaklow Head - after getting severe cramp ascending LE. I recognised my situation and wisely retraced my steps and sought the safety of Crowden and the WMRT, rather than stumble on towards BH and Snake. But if I had stumbled on, I doubt that I would have been on any 5-minute radar until I reached BH / Snake? The Crowden Marshals were great (indeed fabulous), but were hardly anticipating my retreat within a 5-minute window.

Apologies If I have misunderstood you. Just seeking clarification.

PS, I could be wrong but from what I have read I think Wheeze is thinking/talking about trialling a more active/dynamic monitoring system / philosophy in AL/BL races? i.e. between CP?

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Hi OBI

yes you are correct re 5 minutes at cp points but certainly on the GnB and the Trigger we have other unofficial CPs where numbers were taken, I my self was at the fence corner taking pictures and numbers beneath LE, we see this as very important as particularly over Bleaklow there is a huge route choice so knowing which route you are on is vital. Numbers/times would have been taken on Bleaklow summit also so at two places before the official cp at Shelfmoor. These would not be radioed through though unless some one was walkabout and they give us a last known location which speeds searches up no end...hope this helps

The eFRA Ltd thing is yet another example of unintended consequences (like UKA affiliation). The WFRA committee throroughly considered the same action and stepped back from it (for the time being) at the eleventh hour...precisely because we could sense rather than clearly elucidate the perils therein. I for one am very glad that it did.
Corporatisation and commercialisation. Poisonous words for our amateur, minimal profile and simplistic sport.

And, yes OB1, I am proposing to trial a different way of managing an AL race....you never know, it might work!

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Originally Posted by studmarks

Isn’t it funny that the Anniversary Waltz, Herods Farm and the Pendle Cloughs Fell Races all having withdrawn there FRA permits have been taken off the FRA Online events page even though races with no FRA permit still remain and are continued to be added to the list?

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Dear oh dear :( If that really is the case then some people need to take a long hard look at themselves.

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Originally Posted by Richard123

Dear oh dear :( If that really is the case then some people need to take a long hard look at themselves.

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"hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!" springs to mind ...rather childish is it not.

Thanks for reply AI. Clearly the FRA did not handle things in the best possible way last year, we all know that; we also know that some of our exec committee had to spend many unpaid and uncomfortable hours in public and legal settings which they never dreamed they were signing up for. You are not making it any easier for them by constantly bringing up every unguarded or unwise comment from six months ago.

I am not sure how a slight lack of respect, quite possibly in both directions, escalated into the insults and total communication breakdown you have reached now. On the one hand, committee members who are experts at safety in fell races, and on the other hand experts in Corporate Safety and writing Safety Documentation. Both sides had much to contribute to the safety discussion.

It often seems that you simply want heads to roll, because they made a few very public and shocking mistakes last year. Or you want the heads to just fall off by themselves, because you felt insulted. But this is not a business, they are not employees, and I have not in any case heard of any alternatives for the role of Chair (etc), just an offer of help with the safety rules which was somehow made in such a way as to alienate the committee even further.

The running of the FRA can indeed feel a bit like a closed shop, with a seeming lack of accountability both of individual committee members and of the committee as a whole. From what I know, committee members often appear to have a large degree of freedom in their roles rather than being held closely to account. But those who have tried to engage with feedback from the membership or the public have historically found that their every decision is challenged. If there were alternative candidates at the AGM, I can not say who I would vote for, but whatever might happen I am thankful to the current committee for their time and effort through such a challenging period.

Finally, the safety rules:
Many of your criticisms seem to be throwbacks to last summer/autumn. I do not see how you could still think the FRA's safety approach is bound by numerous and excessive rules. There are lots of guidelines and ideas, which an RO can incorporate into their individual race plan or not.

In the safety guidelines, I personally would include something along the lines of

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The (increased) risk in a race is mitigated by the system of marshals so that it should not be significantly worse than any normal walking or running expedition, but help cannot be guaranteed any faster than can otherwise be expected on the mountains, and there is no guarantee of finding a missing runner quickly, especially if they are away from the expected race route, or if they have not reported difficulties to another runner or to a checkpoint marshal

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which (first part) I already see as implied in the safety guidelines. This is a world ahead of the "Anni Waltz" approach of flatly denying there is a duty of care away from the start/finish. I wonder what a court would make of that.

Your main outstanding points are then the approach to race planning, and continuous review by a safety officer? As I indicated before, the FRA's system does not seem that dissimilar to me. Maybe some documents need tightening up and some emphasis on the procedural approach added. But the way you talk, it is as if everything should be torn to pieces and a new system written from scratch.

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Originally Posted by LissaJous

Thanks for reply AI. Clearly the FRA did not handle things in the best possible way last year, we all know that; we also know that some of our exec committee had to spend many unpaid and uncomfortable hours in public and legal settings which they never dreamed they were signing up for. You are not making it any easier for them by constantly bringing up every unguarded or unwise comment from six months ago.

I am not sure how a slight lack of respect, quite possibly in both directions, escalated into the insults and total communication breakdown you have reached now. On the one side, committee members who are experts at safety in fell races, and on the other side experts in Corporate Safety and writing Safety Documentation. Both sides had much to contribute to the safety discussion.

It often seems that you simply want heads to roll, because they made a few very public and shocking mistakes last year. Or you want the heads to simply fall off by themselves, because you felt insulted. But this is not a business, they are not employees, and I have not in any case heard of any alternatives for the role of Chair (etc), just an offer of help with the safety rules which was somehow made in such a way as to alienate the committee.

The running of the FRA can indeed feel a bit like a closed shop, with a seeming lack of accountability both of individual committee members and for the committee as a whole. From what I know, committee members often appear to have a large degree of freedom in their roles rather than being held closely to account. But those who have tried to engage with feedback from the membership or the public have historically found that their every decision is challenged. If there were alternative candidates at the AGM, I can not say who I would vote for, but whatever might happen I am thankful to the current committee for their time and effort through such a challenging period.

Finally, the safety rules:
Many of your criticisms seem to be throwbacks to last summer/autumn. I do not see how you could still think the FRA's safety approach is bound by numerous and excessive rules. There are lots of guidelines and ideas, which an RO can incorporate into their individual race plan or not.

In the safety guidelines, I personally would include something along the lines of

which (first part) I already see as implied in the safety guidelines. This is a world ahead of the "Anni Waltz" approach of flatly denying there is a duty of care away from the start/finish. I wonder what a court would make of that.

Your main outstanding points are then the approach to race planning, and continuous review by a safety officer? As I indicated before, the FRA's system does not seem that dissimilar to me. Maybe some documents need tightening up and some emphasis on the procedural approach added. But the way you talk, is it as if everything should be torn to pieces and a new system written from scratch.

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Everything should be torn to pieces and rebuilt.

Most of what is in the rules as a must or should belongs just as a consider in guidelines on how to create a plan. Some has no place anywhere. The documents have no proper structure.

No other sport but ours tries to operate on a skeleton of rules, and uses seat of the pants to fill in the gaps, with "whatever the RO feels like" acceptable as a plan to fill in the gaps.
Which method failed lamentably at Sailbeck, and until I see something which addresses those problems I will continue to believe there is still a problem. So they are not "experts at fell race safety" because the policies failed for reasons which are evident to safety trained people used to managing safety of team projects.

You have a choice.
(a) Either you think the present approach is OK, and in need of tweaking but in general an RO screwed up badly at sailbeck - ie the ROs fault.

or (b)you think that the RO was badly advised on what he should have been doing instead, and there should have been a system in place that stopped one screw up becoming a catastrophe, and FRA have sat on their hands for far too long doing nothing on safety so the old ways are just not good enough.

I am firmly in camp (b) having read the evidence of the inquest.

The reality is like all other disciplines, the formal understanding of safety management needs melding with the technical skills of organising races to come up with a proper formula for safety with both sides contributing some of the answer. It is not my fault that it took so many attempts to get people to see reason on many of the issues( whilst the but of many offensive remarks from "them" ) that the situation got so polarized. If they had acted responsibly they would (a) recognised that their understanding was flawed (b) have seen the need for qualified assistance (c) taken it on board long before relationships deteriorated.

In a corporate setting there would have been less scope for the situation to get out of hand, because they would have been legally obliged to seek a "competent person" , and those seeking to stay in control of it, would have been obliged to take a sideways step: but the lack of that mandate in law does not alter one iota the need to do it.

This is not a me issue Lauren. They dispatched Andy W who is a safety professional for standing up for his professional ethics. They have treated such as Richard Taylor with equal disdain who has taken legal advice stating they are wrong in their assertions. Wynn who is one of the best RO out there, was treated like a naughty schoolgirl for having qualms about the rules imposed on her.

Even UKA demand assessments (which leads to control measures for people, the combination of which is a "plan") and our constitution does not allow us to ignore that, but we do.
But there is a lot more to safety than that, I highlighted a few of the issues.

No intention of repeating.But the problem continues: it did not stop last october. Take the secretary continues to claim untested documents up as good practise. And that has consequences, take the "Number grids" which because they were introduced without an SOP and without qualification, so caused a problem at a race because of it. None of this is done properly still.

You have misunderstood. It is the leadership of the safety committee which concerns me not the organisation as a whole, and the process by which documents and methods are approved. I have alienated the commitee by saying their process of approval has failed since they all had a hand in approving duff stuff, and when apparent consent at a preston meeting was ignored, they should have supported andy W right to a motion vote, even if they voted him down. But instead of accepting that they have something to answer for in all that, they prefer to shoot the messenger instead.

But in the light of letters to coroner, motions prevent, minutes culled and so on, it does question leadership of the whole. I certainly have no aspirations there, indeed cannot work in an organisation in which "toeing the party line" is considered more important than doing it right. The problem is there is no pleasant way to say it. When a document was extremely badly drafted, you have to question the competence of the one who did it, and whether they should stay in place. It would be far more preferable for people to accept their own limitations and not take control of things they do not properly understand.

You would not allow it in your private life. I cannot imagine if a garage bungled mending your car making a myriad of basic mistakes, you would take it to the same place again, and let the same guy work unsupervised on it, and belief you had that the mechanic or garage was an "expert" at what they do would evaporate right there, regardless of whether they later fixed it. But that is what you seem to support for FRA in respect of safety, because you still consider them "experts at safety" when they have proven they are not.

Let me assure you the lack of respect was entirely from the executive in origin. My taking the gloves off came later.

Anyway...I entered the thread because of what was said in fellrunner.
Enough is enough.

[QUOTE=IanDarkpeak;579736][QUOTE=alwaysinjured;579730]

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Originally Posted by IanDarkpeak

I would say it depends on many things, weather, person missing, is he/she alone, terrain they are missing in, time to night fall?

got to leave now...going to Lads leap.
Will answer OB1 on my return

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For the sake of example, I said one runner. The time of day and length of day is as they are at edale race. With 2 hours more or less to mam tor. The conditions cold and inclement as they often are, definite possibilities of hypothermia.. You have a decision to make on time to call out. It is a decision that in principle you can - and probably should - make as part of an incident plan before you start the race.

You have no idea where the guy is, only that he left mam nick in whiteout clag and has failed to show up anywhere else. The only ones you have asked say they think they saw him after that, but it was so claggy that they could not be sure, all they really saw was shadows of runners in the gloom.So what time do you send out the heavies? Sooner or later it becomes a yes /no time. Not a list of what to consider.

Not a trick question.

I am genuinely interested in how a mountain rescue guy / come someone heavily involved in organisation thinks - at what time do you change concern to action - and in practice whether that is before the race has already finished for many or most of the field, or the ones "around" the missing runner in the field- and what areas do you commmence the search - how many bodies are sent out to search?

I think check points in races aren't there primarily for safety and, with that in mind, shouldn't really have too much safety responsibility thrust upon them. The original reason for check points was surely to make sure runners were visiting the peak or route markers concerned (ie not cheating) rather than to look out for lost souls? For example the checkpoint on the Fairfield Horseshoe is at the summit windshelter at the half way point 5 miles in whereas the checkpoints of the Full Tour of Pendle are all over the place, probably no more than 2 miles apart on average due to its convoluted route. So just on checkpoint count, some races get closer scrutiny of where runners are than others. If you take that to its logical conclusion you'd have the barmy situation of enforced checkpoints at what every mile or something, making for really really boring race routes. For sure checkpoints should look after runners if they need to but the real business of looking for any one missing should be left to the end of the race. Certainly its only at the end that you can realistically tally who's finished and who's still out.

As for the Edale Skyline example, although runners are relatively high up for most of the race, making things dodgier in bad weather, its an easy race to bail from if a runner needs too (just head into the valley) so, in that respect, I'd say its a pretty safe race.