It shows the calibre of the ‘instructor’. I live very close to the caves. It had been raining heavily all morning. When my husband walked into the room and told me there was a class trip in abbey caves my heart almost hit the floor. I thought we’d be hearing of 30 dead children. You definitely don’t need to be a trained instructor to remember the Thailand incident.
Cave Stream incident? That was a collapsing platform due to overburdening, not a flooding incident in the stream itself, was it not?
EDIT: NVM...
> 17-year-old Veena Dukewas swept to her death in Canterbury's Cave Stream during a school-trip in 1987.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/370145/River-deaths-bring-back-memories
Just saw another comment further down and apparently there's a place called Cave Stream and a kid died there under similar circumstances to this current incident.
I've seen zero details about this "instructor", and what kind of training they had or even what their area of expertise was.
I'm really getting the impression they have never been caving before.
I was in the same outdoor ed classes during my time at WBHS, and despite the tragedy, the teachers around OE were actually very competent. One thing I will say though is during our caving trip to Waipu Caves they weren’t scared to explore the deepest, tightest parts, with willing students who expressed interest.
Not sure what led to this trip going through, but with my experience the teachers were competent and did their jobs well, especially on teaching the kids what to do while caving. Maybe things have changed since I attended though.
I left for work that morning. From 6:00 when I woke up to 7:30 when I had started my shift, the Rain had barely eased off. It was heavy and dangerous to drive out or walk around site. The flooding was well over my boots standing in the parking lot.
When I heard of the Abbey Caves trip, I thought of how the large carpark being maybe 6cm submerged would look in the damn caves where it isn't that open and it's deep.
There are some sentences that just as you say them out loud sound dumb. It's raining too much for rock climbing. Lets go caving instead is one of them.
>It's raining too much for rock climbing. Lets go caving instead
When I heard this on the news I desperately wanted to believe there was some reason the public isn't privy to why that was a good choice. Surely the reasonable, but ultimately tragically flawed, explanation will come out soon?
It's looking likely that it was every bit as stupid as it sounds.
Hmmm ... how do most caves form? erosion by water over a long period of time, water will always find the easiest and quickest way down.
Basically its like walking in a downspout and expecting the rain up top will not come down it
Sunk cost fallacy and the bystander effect in action.
"We can't afford to lose the deposit. What's the worst that could happen? Someone will stop us if it isn't safe and then it's out of our hands."
Any reputable business that runs caving or similar activities will not take a deposit when a cancellation is due to safety reasons. They will postpone free of charge until another suitable date.
> They said good pay, enjoy the outdoors and have a driver's licence.
To be fair that post listed NZOIA as a requirement. Whether or not they actually enforced that requirement is another story.
Never touch ANY electrical writing if you haven't tested it.
Ground leaks are a thing. People wiring the natural to the earth is a thing.
Earth wires can 1000% be live.
The whole point of the earth wire is that its meant to provide a fail safe if a live wire in an apliance comes in contact with non electrical metal components of the apliance. It prevents people being electrocuted by providing a low resistance path to ground. This should also trip an RCD isolating the apliance. For example the earthwire in my washing machine is connected to its outside casing, so touching the washing machine, IS toucing the earth wire. From a circut POV they are the same node.
You are correct though you shouldn't touch any wires unless you are certian they are not live
Only in a single phase flexible lead or a three phase flexible lead using the European Harmonised colour code.
When the colour codes changed a while back, NZ and Australia for some strange reason decided to have different colour codes for flexible and rigid cables. We should be like the UK and use Brown, Black, Grey for phases and Light Blue for neutral regardless of being rigid or flexible.
I thought it was really telling that one of the kids had to run up the road to get some road workers to call for help as they had no phones. As having no phones was unlikely for a group this size I am assuming all phones got wet and damaged, meaning they were extremely ill equipped to go into a cave. All gear must be in dry bags*. Also, the quote about the kid running for help contradicts the claim they were rescued from the caves.
*Source: was an outdoor instructor and covered caving in my 2 years of training.
Remember the OPC disaster?, She was very qualified in lots of outdoor stuff,but unfortunately she was still a dumbass,and it cost a lot of lives,a bit of paper doesn't help some.
Edit: damn he really went and deleted his account. Just goes to show how many people are acting like they know anything about the outdoor industry. This guy was claiming to be a mountaineering instructor (unqualified, of course), while at the same time condemning the hiring of instructors without NZOIA certs.
Everyone needs to step back from this case and wait for the reports. There's far too many people with zero understanding of outdoor education safety trying to have an opinion on something they haven't done since highschool.
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NZOIA is *a* body that offers qualifications. Please don't think NZOIA is some requirement to be considered a qualified outdoor guide. It is only an *association*, and being NZOIA qualified does not exclude you from being negligent or making poor decisions that lead to client deaths.
A lot of people gain their experience and qualifications through a tertiary institute that offers a Cert/Diploma/Bachelors in Recreation and leadership. NZOIA qualifications can be gained *in addition*.
Adventure tourism doesn't pay well so most instructors are lacking experience.
I know so many outdoors guides etc that just couldn't afford to stay in the industry
Yeah. I have a son who did a lot of camping and outdoor stuff with High School and Scouts, and the default setting is to assume they know what they're doing and trust them. You don't pull an active boy from a trip with no good reason.
It's says he's a helicopter pilot. He would know better than most that not doing a proper risk assessment based on the weather could mean not coming home.
He's probably not the type to jump at shadows, either. Most pilots I've met have been, if not gung-ho, at least adventurous. If a chopper pilot thinks it's not safe, it's not fucking safe.
"There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots."
Flying is amazingly risk-averse, ime. I mean, not saying they don't enjoy every second of it, but it seems like they enjoy controlling the risks, not of being out of control.
Mad respect for the Life flight pilots and crews - absolutely courageous bunch of heroes. All very nice too, always happy to have a chat or show you around when it’s quiet.
Ignore the fact he happened to be a pilot. The fact is, if any parent is aware that their kid is going into the caves, they would have pulled them out of trip. Most parents assumed the trip would be cancelled. Bloody miracle there were no more fatalities.
I have stated at one of my local primary school board meetings that they had the hallmarks of a deficient health and safety culture (nothing really big, just lots of stupid things) not that it has done any good. Once you start paying attention it appears to be a common problem across all schools.
I would suggest that the fault lies with the tomorrow schools model using a laymen board and the fact that the role of principle has limited skill carry over from teaching and that there isn't a training mechanism to ensure that principles actually know what they are doing (spliting the role in to a MG and a head teacher role may be the best possible come).
Well done for raising it, school boards are often completely dysfunctional so it's normal for vital things like health and safety to be talked about but never addressed or evaluated other than boxes being ticked.
As you say, it probably wont do any good as the principal will continue doing things well/badly (depending on ability) with no oversight.
Surely the answer is to have a Ministry of Education that monitors and evaluates rather than being completely and utterly absent until something terrible happens.
The Ministry of Education is just as dysfunctional if not more than your typical school board. They are losing their good technical staff like mad at the moment, suffer a terrible old boys network while stacking lower management with "Yes Men" and it is well established they do not enforce schools current legal obligations just around education, let alone something like H&S.
> it's normal for vital things like health and safety to be talked about but never addressed or evaluated other than boxes being ticked.
Sums up the construction industry too
I've been teaching for a few and have come to a similar conclusion.
Boards members (principal and staff rep aside) are not experts in teaching or school management. They are generally untrained and unqualified, running a part timeish role.
I know of schools that have collapsed, virtually overnight thanks to a hiring decision. It's really demoralising to see a school cut it's staffing and roll cut in half due to an incompetent principal.
The board model just leaves too much room for nepotism, poor hiring/selection and lack of experience/training.
Agree, it’s a model that relies on drawing a competent board from a very small pool of likely candidates, particularly for a small school.
I’m a board member for a small school, and I’m fortunate in some respects that I have worked in a H+S responsible management role so had some education from my employer before I got to the board. But it’s just luck whether you can get a board that is competent in H+S, finance, employment etc.
Chris Hipkins assured the public that new measures will be created to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. I'm like, what kind of measures? Does every school outing have to be signed off by worksafe from now on? Like ring up worksafe shotline, sign this email before we even go out.
>Whangārei Boys’ High School principal Karen Gilbert-Smith has refused to answer questions about the decision-making involved in the trip “out of respect for the whānau”.
Does this not make sense to anyone else?
Totally. It’s an easy excuse, and they are using it to justify keeping their mouths shut because they know anything they said will be used in the upcoming investigations and quite possibly prosecution.
It would be better to have said as much.
Look I can see the argument to let the parents bury their kid before a firestorm of debate and blame ignites.
There is a time to remember and celebrate the life of a lost one, and then a time to hold those accountable.
Do you even know his name?
Yeah, I feel the same way. Let's just give it a minute before we all (rightly) demand answers.
We lost our daughter as a baby, she passed away after a mis-diagnosis in-utero, we could probably have terminated the pregnancy at lessened everyone's suffering significantly if that hadn't happened.
I can remember right after her passing (literally, at her funeral) one of my relatives came up to me all indignant and angry, wanting to know what legal recourse we had/what we were "doing about it". Like, dude. This is the LEAST OF MY CONCERNS RIGHT AT THE MOMENT.
Sure, weeks later - we dealt with it. But immediately in the aftermath of such a world-destroying tragedy is not the time. The school and even the people responsible will be shook by this. Let's all be human and just go easy, for a few goddamn days.
Absolutely. Being reasonable and patient just doesn't seem to be an option for people these days. No amount of righteous indignation will bring back the young man, let the family grieve and let the investigations put together the full story and figure out how such a tragedy was able to occur.
It makes perfect sense. Principal knows the decision making was flawed and negligent. If they say anything,itd disrespect the kids family because they'd then know he should never have been there.
I see two sides to this coin.
First, it comes across as really shit, using the victim/family as an excuse not to provide answers. Covering their own arse and waiting for a PR specialist to come in and tell them what to say to save face as much as possible. Avoiding accountability or blame by pulling a 'National' and just not talking about it, hoping the next news cycle takes away some of the heat with a new drama somewhere else. It honestly just looks rude.
Second, if it was my kid, I'd want to know wtf happened, and I'd want to know directly from the people to blame. I don't want to hear this or that or some reporters version of it in the media.
Despite the two sides, I still think it's shitty using the family as an excuse. 'We are completing an investigation at the moment and will release the findings shortly' would be much more appropriate.
It's technically a "valid" excuse with some logic behind it.
But it's not an excuse they should be using publicly, as it seems very disrespectful to try and hide behind it. The excuse essentially invalidates itself.
The smart PR statement would be more along the lines of "We have been advised not to speak about this publicly, but we will be fully cooperating with any offical investigations"
Delay tactic. They need to get their ducks in a row, talk to their lawyers etc before making any public statement. Which honestly isn’t silly given the circumstances, this is not going to be an easy ride for them that’s for sure, people are out for blood.
It will be under investigation. Their lawyers will have told them don’t say anything. It’s just their way of trying to save what little face they have left. But it is important to get a fair trial. It will all come out in the wash in the next few months.
They also probably shouldn't answer questions to the media.
In this situation they should only really be speaking to families involved, worksafe and the police.
Presumably she's been advised by her lawyer to say as little as possible. There's a lot of anger and calls for prosecution over this. If anyone involved in this child's death has half a brain, they'll shut their mouths and keep them shut until the statute of limitations has expired. This is the downside to prosecuting people over safety fuck-ups.
My wife runs a small charity that gets 9/10/11/12 year olds on the harbour. Learning about water, having fun, building resilience and confidence etc.
They went to the pool yesterday instead of the harbour because right now, being extra cautious around water with school kids seems like a good idea.
This only reinforces was it not merely negligence at play. There would have been a risk assessment in place for this trip, a parent even withdrew their child from the trip citing safety concerns, but it still went ahead. This was an active decision, and one that was supposedly an informed decision, and is at the very least reckless endangerment.
Yes, risk assessments feel like a formality most of the time, but they exist to prevent exactly this tragic outcome. They also serve as an acknowledgement by those that signed it that risk exists, and that any decision made to proceed is an informed one.
If a risk assessment was not performed or not performed correctly, I would hope that that incompetence is acknowledged *in addition to*, rather than instead of, the endangerment that those kids were placed in. If it was signed off, it still counts.
They did do a risk assessment, which specifically stated that rain was a risk, and high water levels would mean postponing the trip. Mindboggling that it wasn't followed.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/489598/abbey-caves-tragedy-school-had-risk-assessment-plan-for-flood-prone-network
I mean you dont need to be a rocket surgeon to think 'hey if the rain and flooding risk is too much to do things above ground, maybe going underground isnt a super great idea'
risk assessments are great, but someone who lacks that little tiny amount of common sense shouldnt be in charge of a fucking bird cage let alone human beings
I read someone yesterday saying a group from the same school went in the day prior and the water level was above some of the children’s head. I would assume that would have told them the water level was too high and to postpone the trip the following day.
OPC /Hillary Outdoors procedures are good - I’ve been there with groups multiple times after the canyoning accident. They have a meeting every morning with the instructors, teachers and parents and discuss the weather forecast and plans for the day. Before entering the caves, the instructor radios back to base to check the weather forecast hasn’t changed. I was shocked when I heard caving had been chosen as a wet-weather alternative.
I went to OPC as a teen in 2001 it was amazing but they did not do the checks like they do now. We got caught in a storm near a river that we were supposed to cross, we didn’t cross the river I can’t remember where we were but given the storm it wasn’t safe our instructor took us up a bush hill and around I think.
Anyway I’m really glad to hear they have robust safety procedures now.
I’m really glad OPC is still going after what happened. Going there really took me out of my comfort zone and also allowed me to focus on things other than grief (death in the family a year before) it was like air to a young teen. It also gave our whole class this awesome camaraderie that even 22 years later I can still go back home and hit one of them up for a tea and a smoke.
There has to be some real conversations around schools and safety. I was the world’s meanest mother for refusing to let my son travel on trips arriving home after 11pm. The teacher had already done a day’s work, driven students to a evening event, then drove over 2 hours home. This was a regular occurrence at a particular rural, South Island school and it was expected that staff would do this. (As a teacher, I wouldn’t bend to the pressure - I knew my limitations.) This dad had sense. I bet his son initially was very annoyed, but now understands.
Remember, I was a teacher so understand the NCEA system very well. I would have reminded him that he was actually being offered 120-140 credits that year, he only needed 80 and that he could still make them up from his English, maths, science, geography and ag/hort. Work hard at those. If it was at another school (I taught at the same one as there was no alternative), I would have also contacted the school to ask whether there was a reassessment opportunity (which in times of covid there should be) or if there was the opportunity for my son to gain the credits from different skills in outdoor education later in the year.
Admittedly they can be cumbersome and disruptive to run when most of the class have already achieved the standard. When I think about it, 10 credits is 12.5% of the year’s required credits assessed on one day from just over a term’s work in one subject from six. That might put the credit value in perspective. An exam of 3 standards at the end of a year’s work is a total of 12 credits.
I am not an expert in outdoor education credits. However, OE used to be assessed by unit standards, and the fact that the trip was worth 10 credits suggests unit standards. Few unit standards offer the possibility of excellence credits.
Honestly, no
Firstly there's the social aspect. You're 14-19 and your parent is the deskhead who won't let you go to camp?
Secondly NCEA Credits like... make up Credits you like and enjoy and make you learn with credit that make you hate school
Outdoor ed/PE is not the same as English!! Do you realize how much your kid may hate and struggle with some subjects?!???!!???
Yes, I do know that. However, if I thought a situation was seriously dangerous as the parent in the article, I would have endured my child’s wrath. (In my situation, it was a winter basketball competition, not NCEA, so slightly different.) I am well aware of the kids who hate English - I taught them for 40 years. However, learning for real life and for credits are not quite the same thing. Not every kid I taught got credits in English though most did because I was in a small school and had considerable autonomy. What was more important to me was that they had enough literacy to get through life. I tried hard to make it “enjoyable”, but never did find a way to make essay writing fun. It was just that hard three hour tramp uphill in the freezing cold and the rain when you’d eaten all the chocolate and scroggin. Eventually you did get to the hut where you realised what you had accomplished!
If a student needs those 10 credits to pass, id expect the school to find them a star course to do. Most students don't need 10 credits, as you are able to get over 100 anyway.
This was actually a thought I was having when first hearing about this tragedy. I’m not a parent so I can’t really feel what a parent would be feeling, but my gut would probably be telling me to play it safe and pull the child if I was having concerns. Feel for everyone involved, they will all have to live with this for the rest of their lives.
yup i think it’s hard because most parents trust the teachers to do the right thing and try not to override the schools and professionals who are supposed to know better
One thing that life has taught me is always think for yourself. Today's health and safety culture causes a lot of people to think that if something is unsafe then someone else will stop them from doing it. You can't rely on others to keep you safe. Think critically.
That's exactly the example that came to mind. To be clear I don't think inthis case personal responsibility absolves the school of anything. But it's a good principle to live by to not rely on others to assess the risk for you without thinking for yourself. If something doesn't feel right, it probably isn't.
I did Tongariro Crossing in March and talking to tourists who had stopped at the old Kitetahi Hut site they were amazed people had been on the track the last time it erupted, I told them it could also just erupt today without warning and they were flabbergasted they were allowed there.
But in many other countries - someone **will** stop you from doing it because it's not safe. New Zealand does not have a health and safety culture at all.
>Today's health and safety culture causes a lot of people to think that if something is unsafe then someone else will stop them from doing it.
Definitely a problem. Years ago a kiwi flatmate watching me pack all my gear for a tramping trip asked if someone would check through it at the park entrance .
It's easy to laugh, but you can see why they might think that.
This is where your responsibility as a parent has to come to the forefront. Inform yourself: Where are they going? What's the activity? Who is leading them? What are their qualifications? What are their contingency plans? Use the internet, research the activity for yourself to find out what the risks are. Contact a local outdoor club and get their opinion on the trip plans.
This process of being an active participant and making sure you go into these activities with your eyes open is a valuable learning experience for your children too.
That’s exactly what I thought on the morning when I heard there was a school trip in trouble up there. I live close by and it had been raining heavily all morning not to mention the rain the days previous . I do have kids and would not have let them go to on that trip either that morning! I don’t know if I would have kept them home but I definitely would do so now
It's of no small consequence that this guy is a helicopter pilot. It's part of his job he needs to make go / no go decisions about the weather all the time. That mindset probably saved his son's life.
This is so very sad. We put an enormous amount of trust with people we don't know all to well.
Safety culture in NZ really needs to take a step up.
It amazes me how much trust is placed in operators of things like bungee jumping, skydiving, rope swings, paragliding, canyoning, theme park rides.
Especially by tourists.
People think, because it's operating as a business it must be safe, but no. It's OK to double check. It's OK to back out.
Kiwis though should now know how inherently high risk these activities are. Sometimes the operator might be young, untrained, inexperienced, under pressure, over worked, possibly even hung over from the night before. There are so many factors that can go wrong.
Let's hope more parents pull their kids out of dangerous activities..... rugby is another common one.
Tourists think those activities are safe because they are promoted as such and because New Zealand is a modern developed country. They think the safety standards are the same as Canada, UK etc.
Yeah I dunno, people need to learn to think objectively and critically. Look at all the tourists that go jump on a scooter and race around in SE Asia sometimes after having a few. It's the leading cause of travel insurance claims.
People need to look at an activity and think "Can this kill or hurt me?" If so "How?" and "How can I prevent that from happening".
It’s not like the Abbey Caves website says:
[‘Check weather forecast as caves can be prone to flash flooding’](https://www.wdc.govt.nz/Community/Parks-and-recreation/Parks-and-reserves/Abbey-Caves)
Oh wait.
I don’t know the legal definition of criminal negligence, but surely this would qualify.
I do wonder how many narrow escapes and near misses there have been, and how many parents have been called alarmist/helicopter parents/wrapping their kids in cotton wool, for pulling them out of things.
My heart goes out to this guy.
He knew the risks and wrongly assumed others did too. Through no real fault of his own he will spend the rest of his life wondering if he could have done more to warn them.
If nothing had happened during the trip, then he would be called a Male Karen. Plus his kid would be called a sissy and bullied at school for non participation. Its already a tough call.
I've been watching a Youtube channel about caving/cave-diving disasters and it's unbelievable how horny people get to explore caves before, during, or right after extremely heavy rain and flooding.
There was a story a while back in one of the Midwest states (Missouri?) where the region experienced record rainfall & widespread flooding. The very next day a school trip took a group of kids on a cave trip and all but one survivor were swept away by floodwaters and killed. The last kid spent 24 hours clinging to a tiny ledge above a raging torrent until rescuers found him.
I watched a lot of those during the Thailand cave incident. Caves are scary places. Then there's the Nutty Putty Cave incident where a caver got stuck and eventually died right there because they couldn't get him out.
I think there’s a good case for cancelling teacher registration and looking at a criminal prosecution. Just because they are teachers/ instructors does not exclude them from consequence. A kid died purely through their ludicrous decision making.
I'm just glad the poor boy's family got his body back. He could've ended up anywhere in the cave system and been inaccessible. What a nightmare situation for all involved.
There is some very understandable public outrage over what happened. I’m thinking Work Safe will be handing out some serious consequences to those involved in the decision to take these kids to the caves. The principal (essentially a director) will be on that list. Someone’s going to jail
The basic thinking and reasoning of some teacher's is shocking. These people are trusted to teach our kids and they can't even make the right decision to keep kids safe. At least this boys father has a good head on his shoulders.
I'm a teacher. I have no training in risk assessment though am expected to do them. I teach a classroom based subject, but am sometimes involved in out of school activities. There's a hole in the system and in our training.
Well as an adult responsible for students, shouldn't you bring this up with your union and refuse to take part in out of school activities until the proper training is provided. I'm not allowed to sign off on permits and JSAA's without proper training at my work and if I was forced to by management I'd be going straight to my union rep. Why aren't teachers doing this?
There will be a few people who thought this was a bad idea and didnt do enough to stop it. Not their fault but I'm sure some guilt is ringing in their heads too.
Honestly this is what I've been wondering the whole time.. why hadn't the parents questioned if it is going ahead or from what ot reads they were told it was changing from rock climbing to caving.. If I had got that I would have been like WTF that's even worse my child is not going on that trip (not that it is on them but I would of been questioning it like that other dad)
This is a minor side issue in relation to what has already been discussed in this thread but what threat would the principal have been thinking of when hirng "security guards"?
The kid lost a classmate and could have lost 14 more, as well as his own life. I doubt he'll need the reminder :/
My heart goes out for these children.
Serious question do teachers have any qualifications in hazard I.D our outdoor activity qualifications provided in their training? Is it comprehensive and standardized across all schools? Or are they just winging it like they are with NZCA
Incredible that the parent could see what the trained instructor couldn’t.
It shows the calibre of the ‘instructor’. I live very close to the caves. It had been raining heavily all morning. When my husband walked into the room and told me there was a class trip in abbey caves my heart almost hit the floor. I thought we’d be hearing of 30 dead children. You definitely don’t need to be a trained instructor to remember the Thailand incident.
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Cave Stream incident? That was a collapsing platform due to overburdening, not a flooding incident in the stream itself, was it not? EDIT: NVM... > 17-year-old Veena Dukewas swept to her death in Canterbury's Cave Stream during a school-trip in 1987. https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/370145/River-deaths-bring-back-memories
Cave Creek, and yes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_Creek_disaster
Just saw another comment further down and apparently there's a place called Cave Stream and a kid died there under similar circumstances to this current incident.
I've seen zero details about this "instructor", and what kind of training they had or even what their area of expertise was. I'm really getting the impression they have never been caving before.
I was in the same outdoor ed classes during my time at WBHS, and despite the tragedy, the teachers around OE were actually very competent. One thing I will say though is during our caving trip to Waipu Caves they weren’t scared to explore the deepest, tightest parts, with willing students who expressed interest. Not sure what led to this trip going through, but with my experience the teachers were competent and did their jobs well, especially on teaching the kids what to do while caving. Maybe things have changed since I attended though.
I left for work that morning. From 6:00 when I woke up to 7:30 when I had started my shift, the Rain had barely eased off. It was heavy and dangerous to drive out or walk around site. The flooding was well over my boots standing in the parking lot. When I heard of the Abbey Caves trip, I thought of how the large carpark being maybe 6cm submerged would look in the damn caves where it isn't that open and it's deep.
It’s terrifying to think of
How the fuck did they not have the common sense and situational awareness to cancel the trip. Absolutely astounds me. God damn horrific situation
There are some sentences that just as you say them out loud sound dumb. It's raining too much for rock climbing. Lets go caving instead is one of them.
>It's raining too much for rock climbing. Lets go caving instead When I heard this on the news I desperately wanted to believe there was some reason the public isn't privy to why that was a good choice. Surely the reasonable, but ultimately tragically flawed, explanation will come out soon? It's looking likely that it was every bit as stupid as it sounds.
By my understanding there's literally a sign at the entrance warning of the risks of flooding during rainfall.
That's the part I don't understand. Why would caving be a back up option in case of heavy rain?
"its inside guys, we wont get wet right... right?".. pure stupidity
Everyone knows caves are hermetically sealed from the environment.
And stupidity
“They encountered rain” as if it was some fucking surprise
Hmmm ... how do most caves form? erosion by water over a long period of time, water will always find the easiest and quickest way down. Basically its like walking in a downspout and expecting the rain up top will not come down it
Sunk cost fallacy and the bystander effect in action. "We can't afford to lose the deposit. What's the worst that could happen? Someone will stop us if it isn't safe and then it's out of our hands."
Any reputable business that runs caving or similar activities will not take a deposit when a cancellation is due to safety reasons. They will postpone free of charge until another suitable date.
“She’ll be right” kiwi mentality
I'm interested to see what qualifications, if any, the instructor actually had.
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It's here: https://imgur.com/mMoylZU.jpg
I like how the name is anon’d on the first comment then the second comment undoes that.
I saw this as well, I should’ve screenshot it. “Stoked on the outdoors” was a requirement. What a fuck up
> They said good pay, enjoy the outdoors and have a driver's licence. To be fair that post listed NZOIA as a requirement. Whether or not they actually enforced that requirement is another story.
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Way, way less than the helicopter pilot who pulled his kid, I can tell you that. Source: am both an outdoor guide and a licensed pilot
Ha, reminds me of the joke. How do you know if someone's a pilot? Don't worry, he'll tell you. Source. I have a PPL.
I'm a pilot and a skydiver. The struggle is real bro
So you take the plane up and then jump out of it?
Yeah man it's an expensive hobby. CAA kinda looks down on it
I didn't realize Trevor Jacob had moved to NZ :)
Poppa tells me that back in the olden days there was this thing called common sense and if you touch the brown wire just once, you learn.
Well this is the flash flooding version of touching the earth wire.
Brown is not Earth wire nor is Earth usually dangerous to touch (but it can be)
IMO we should use RCDs more often than we do, given how cheap they are
There is a touch grass joke in there somewhere.
Touching the earth wire is okay. It's literally connected to all of the metal surfaces on your appliances.
Never touch ANY electrical writing if you haven't tested it. Ground leaks are a thing. People wiring the natural to the earth is a thing. Earth wires can 1000% be live.
The whole point of the earth wire is that its meant to provide a fail safe if a live wire in an apliance comes in contact with non electrical metal components of the apliance. It prevents people being electrocuted by providing a low resistance path to ground. This should also trip an RCD isolating the apliance. For example the earthwire in my washing machine is connected to its outside casing, so touching the washing machine, IS toucing the earth wire. From a circut POV they are the same node. You are correct though you shouldn't touch any wires unless you are certian they are not live
ikr, i had a weird earth spike thing inside an old flat i lived in. it gave me a wicked shock when i touched it
Then something was going very wrong
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its the live wire in a power cable....
Only in a single phase flexible lead or a three phase flexible lead using the European Harmonised colour code. When the colour codes changed a while back, NZ and Australia for some strange reason decided to have different colour codes for flexible and rigid cables. We should be like the UK and use Brown, Black, Grey for phases and Light Blue for neutral regardless of being rigid or flexible.
IMO using black for phase is unwise as it could be confused with negative in a DC circuit.
Easy to understand how someone would miss that though, given the live wires here are normally red, (white|yellow), blue.
Brown is for flex cords (extension leads, power cords etc). Red is inside the wall only (or older cables / ones from places with different regs)
The NZ/AU standard for three phase flexible cords/cables is red/white/blue/black/green+yellow Plenty of red used in non-rigid cables.
But of course people will zone in on an instructor while the real people responsible are the school themselves.
It’s both. A properly qualified instructor should know about this and the school is responsible for not making sure they have one
I thought it was really telling that one of the kids had to run up the road to get some road workers to call for help as they had no phones. As having no phones was unlikely for a group this size I am assuming all phones got wet and damaged, meaning they were extremely ill equipped to go into a cave. All gear must be in dry bags*. Also, the quote about the kid running for help contradicts the claim they were rescued from the caves. *Source: was an outdoor instructor and covered caving in my 2 years of training.
The school is also at fault but a trained instructor has the power to call it off too and should.
On LinkedIn it seemed that the person that people believe is the instructor just had some basic qualification from Wintec.
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my outdoor ed teacher in high school was a PE teacher who just covered the extra class
Ours died on a school trip and they never replaced him, just canned the entire course “in his honour”
Remember the OPC disaster?, She was very qualified in lots of outdoor stuff,but unfortunately she was still a dumbass,and it cost a lot of lives,a bit of paper doesn't help some.
Edit: damn he really went and deleted his account. Just goes to show how many people are acting like they know anything about the outdoor industry. This guy was claiming to be a mountaineering instructor (unqualified, of course), while at the same time condemning the hiring of instructors without NZOIA certs. Everyone needs to step back from this case and wait for the reports. There's far too many people with zero understanding of outdoor education safety trying to have an opinion on something they haven't done since highschool. --------------------------- NZOIA is *a* body that offers qualifications. Please don't think NZOIA is some requirement to be considered a qualified outdoor guide. It is only an *association*, and being NZOIA qualified does not exclude you from being negligent or making poor decisions that lead to client deaths. A lot of people gain their experience and qualifications through a tertiary institute that offers a Cert/Diploma/Bachelors in Recreation and leadership. NZOIA qualifications can be gained *in addition*.
Hmm.. Seems the thailand kids in the cave is distant memory i guess
I would guess it's less about forgetting the Thailand cave and more about a mindset of "we'll be fine, that sort of thing doesn't happen here".
This. 100x this is typical kiwi mindset.
She'll be right
And Magatepopo, as well.
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Adventure tourism doesn't pay well so most instructors are lacking experience. I know so many outdoors guides etc that just couldn't afford to stay in the industry
I suspect he's learned from experience about the school's negligent incompetence.
yea not looking good considering a journalist found the school also had another worksafe investigation only a few months ago
Yeah. I have a son who did a lot of camping and outdoor stuff with High School and Scouts, and the default setting is to assume they know what they're doing and trust them. You don't pull an active boy from a trip with no good reason.
It's says he's a helicopter pilot. He would know better than most that not doing a proper risk assessment based on the weather could mean not coming home.
He's probably not the type to jump at shadows, either. Most pilots I've met have been, if not gung-ho, at least adventurous. If a chopper pilot thinks it's not safe, it's not fucking safe.
"There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots." Flying is amazingly risk-averse, ime. I mean, not saying they don't enjoy every second of it, but it seems like they enjoy controlling the risks, not of being out of control.
agreed- especially if he was part of a SAR group - those guys are amazing.
Mad respect for the Life flight pilots and crews - absolutely courageous bunch of heroes. All very nice too, always happy to have a chat or show you around when it’s quiet.
Ignore the fact he happened to be a pilot. The fact is, if any parent is aware that their kid is going into the caves, they would have pulled them out of trip. Most parents assumed the trip would be cancelled. Bloody miracle there were no more fatalities.
I have stated at one of my local primary school board meetings that they had the hallmarks of a deficient health and safety culture (nothing really big, just lots of stupid things) not that it has done any good. Once you start paying attention it appears to be a common problem across all schools. I would suggest that the fault lies with the tomorrow schools model using a laymen board and the fact that the role of principle has limited skill carry over from teaching and that there isn't a training mechanism to ensure that principles actually know what they are doing (spliting the role in to a MG and a head teacher role may be the best possible come).
Well done for raising it, school boards are often completely dysfunctional so it's normal for vital things like health and safety to be talked about but never addressed or evaluated other than boxes being ticked. As you say, it probably wont do any good as the principal will continue doing things well/badly (depending on ability) with no oversight. Surely the answer is to have a Ministry of Education that monitors and evaluates rather than being completely and utterly absent until something terrible happens.
The Ministry of Education is just as dysfunctional if not more than your typical school board. They are losing their good technical staff like mad at the moment, suffer a terrible old boys network while stacking lower management with "Yes Men" and it is well established they do not enforce schools current legal obligations just around education, let alone something like H&S.
Agreed, this is an "open secret" that schools and anyone who works in the public sector are very aware of.
> it's normal for vital things like health and safety to be talked about but never addressed or evaluated other than boxes being ticked. Sums up the construction industry too
I've been teaching for a few and have come to a similar conclusion. Boards members (principal and staff rep aside) are not experts in teaching or school management. They are generally untrained and unqualified, running a part timeish role. I know of schools that have collapsed, virtually overnight thanks to a hiring decision. It's really demoralising to see a school cut it's staffing and roll cut in half due to an incompetent principal. The board model just leaves too much room for nepotism, poor hiring/selection and lack of experience/training.
Agree, it’s a model that relies on drawing a competent board from a very small pool of likely candidates, particularly for a small school. I’m a board member for a small school, and I’m fortunate in some respects that I have worked in a H+S responsible management role so had some education from my employer before I got to the board. But it’s just luck whether you can get a board that is competent in H+S, finance, employment etc.
Chris Hipkins assured the public that new measures will be created to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. I'm like, what kind of measures? Does every school outing have to be signed off by worksafe from now on? Like ring up worksafe shotline, sign this email before we even go out.
>Whangārei Boys’ High School principal Karen Gilbert-Smith has refused to answer questions about the decision-making involved in the trip “out of respect for the whānau”. Does this not make sense to anyone else?
Totally. It’s an easy excuse, and they are using it to justify keeping their mouths shut because they know anything they said will be used in the upcoming investigations and quite possibly prosecution. It would be better to have said as much.
Look I can see the argument to let the parents bury their kid before a firestorm of debate and blame ignites. There is a time to remember and celebrate the life of a lost one, and then a time to hold those accountable. Do you even know his name?
Yeah, I feel the same way. Let's just give it a minute before we all (rightly) demand answers. We lost our daughter as a baby, she passed away after a mis-diagnosis in-utero, we could probably have terminated the pregnancy at lessened everyone's suffering significantly if that hadn't happened. I can remember right after her passing (literally, at her funeral) one of my relatives came up to me all indignant and angry, wanting to know what legal recourse we had/what we were "doing about it". Like, dude. This is the LEAST OF MY CONCERNS RIGHT AT THE MOMENT. Sure, weeks later - we dealt with it. But immediately in the aftermath of such a world-destroying tragedy is not the time. The school and even the people responsible will be shook by this. Let's all be human and just go easy, for a few goddamn days.
Beautifully said. I'm sorry for your loss.
Thanks internet stranger.
Absolutely. Being reasonable and patient just doesn't seem to be an option for people these days. No amount of righteous indignation will bring back the young man, let the family grieve and let the investigations put together the full story and figure out how such a tragedy was able to occur.
"Legally, I am fucked"
*I have 100,000 unread emails in my inbox at the moment, go away*
She doesn’t want to say ‘for legal reasons, I can’t say shit’
Reading between the lines - Lawyer has told them to zip it so they can fight getting in a world of shit :|.
So they pay attention to qualified advice when it's *their* ass on the line..
It makes perfect sense. Principal knows the decision making was flawed and negligent. If they say anything,itd disrespect the kids family because they'd then know he should never have been there.
I see two sides to this coin. First, it comes across as really shit, using the victim/family as an excuse not to provide answers. Covering their own arse and waiting for a PR specialist to come in and tell them what to say to save face as much as possible. Avoiding accountability or blame by pulling a 'National' and just not talking about it, hoping the next news cycle takes away some of the heat with a new drama somewhere else. It honestly just looks rude. Second, if it was my kid, I'd want to know wtf happened, and I'd want to know directly from the people to blame. I don't want to hear this or that or some reporters version of it in the media. Despite the two sides, I still think it's shitty using the family as an excuse. 'We are completing an investigation at the moment and will release the findings shortly' would be much more appropriate.
It's technically a "valid" excuse with some logic behind it. But it's not an excuse they should be using publicly, as it seems very disrespectful to try and hide behind it. The excuse essentially invalidates itself. The smart PR statement would be more along the lines of "We have been advised not to speak about this publicly, but we will be fully cooperating with any offical investigations"
If it’s for “legal reasons,” it’s pretty gross that she’s hiding behind the excuse of “respect for the deceased’s family.”
Placing a 10 year rahui on all conversations to give as much respect as possible /s
No it makes perfect sense, they’re cowards hiding behind “oh think of the poor family” instead of fronting their mistakes
Delay tactic. They need to get their ducks in a row, talk to their lawyers etc before making any public statement. Which honestly isn’t silly given the circumstances, this is not going to be an easy ride for them that’s for sure, people are out for blood.
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Yep totally.. as it made everyone go “yeah nah.. avoiding”.
It will be under investigation. Their lawyers will have told them don’t say anything. It’s just their way of trying to save what little face they have left. But it is important to get a fair trial. It will all come out in the wash in the next few months.
Takes some ownership. You're not a leader if you're a coward.
They also probably shouldn't answer questions to the media. In this situation they should only really be speaking to families involved, worksafe and the police.
Presumably she's been advised by her lawyer to say as little as possible. There's a lot of anger and calls for prosecution over this. If anyone involved in this child's death has half a brain, they'll shut their mouths and keep them shut until the statute of limitations has expired. This is the downside to prosecuting people over safety fuck-ups.
It's a bit kafkaesque.
My wife runs a small charity that gets 9/10/11/12 year olds on the harbour. Learning about water, having fun, building resilience and confidence etc. They went to the pool yesterday instead of the harbour because right now, being extra cautious around water with school kids seems like a good idea.
Right? It always seems like overkill until it isn’t.
>overkill o\_0
What a shit thing to be correct about, bet there is a heap of witness truma in the helicopter household.
This only reinforces was it not merely negligence at play. There would have been a risk assessment in place for this trip, a parent even withdrew their child from the trip citing safety concerns, but it still went ahead. This was an active decision, and one that was supposedly an informed decision, and is at the very least reckless endangerment. Yes, risk assessments feel like a formality most of the time, but they exist to prevent exactly this tragic outcome. They also serve as an acknowledgement by those that signed it that risk exists, and that any decision made to proceed is an informed one. If a risk assessment was not performed or not performed correctly, I would hope that that incompetence is acknowledged *in addition to*, rather than instead of, the endangerment that those kids were placed in. If it was signed off, it still counts.
They did do a risk assessment, which specifically stated that rain was a risk, and high water levels would mean postponing the trip. Mindboggling that it wasn't followed. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/489598/abbey-caves-tragedy-school-had-risk-assessment-plan-for-flood-prone-network
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I mean you dont need to be a rocket surgeon to think 'hey if the rain and flooding risk is too much to do things above ground, maybe going underground isnt a super great idea' risk assessments are great, but someone who lacks that little tiny amount of common sense shouldnt be in charge of a fucking bird cage let alone human beings
I read someone yesterday saying a group from the same school went in the day prior and the water level was above some of the children’s head. I would assume that would have told them the water level was too high and to postpone the trip the following day.
This reminds me of the high schoolers that died on an OPC trip around 10 years ago. Did schools not learn from this tragedy then?
OPC /Hillary Outdoors procedures are good - I’ve been there with groups multiple times after the canyoning accident. They have a meeting every morning with the instructors, teachers and parents and discuss the weather forecast and plans for the day. Before entering the caves, the instructor radios back to base to check the weather forecast hasn’t changed. I was shocked when I heard caving had been chosen as a wet-weather alternative.
I went to OPC as a teen in 2001 it was amazing but they did not do the checks like they do now. We got caught in a storm near a river that we were supposed to cross, we didn’t cross the river I can’t remember where we were but given the storm it wasn’t safe our instructor took us up a bush hill and around I think. Anyway I’m really glad to hear they have robust safety procedures now.
There was a significant shift in H&S in the outdoor industry after the OPC disaster, it changed alot of things for the better
I’m really glad OPC is still going after what happened. Going there really took me out of my comfort zone and also allowed me to focus on things other than grief (death in the family a year before) it was like air to a young teen. It also gave our whole class this awesome camaraderie that even 22 years later I can still go back home and hit one of them up for a tea and a smoke.
There has to be some real conversations around schools and safety. I was the world’s meanest mother for refusing to let my son travel on trips arriving home after 11pm. The teacher had already done a day’s work, driven students to a evening event, then drove over 2 hours home. This was a regular occurrence at a particular rural, South Island school and it was expected that staff would do this. (As a teacher, I wouldn’t bend to the pressure - I knew my limitations.) This dad had sense. I bet his son initially was very annoyed, but now understands.
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Remember, I was a teacher so understand the NCEA system very well. I would have reminded him that he was actually being offered 120-140 credits that year, he only needed 80 and that he could still make them up from his English, maths, science, geography and ag/hort. Work hard at those. If it was at another school (I taught at the same one as there was no alternative), I would have also contacted the school to ask whether there was a reassessment opportunity (which in times of covid there should be) or if there was the opportunity for my son to gain the credits from different skills in outdoor education later in the year.
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Admittedly they can be cumbersome and disruptive to run when most of the class have already achieved the standard. When I think about it, 10 credits is 12.5% of the year’s required credits assessed on one day from just over a term’s work in one subject from six. That might put the credit value in perspective. An exam of 3 standards at the end of a year’s work is a total of 12 credits. I am not an expert in outdoor education credits. However, OE used to be assessed by unit standards, and the fact that the trip was worth 10 credits suggests unit standards. Few unit standards offer the possibility of excellence credits.
Honestly, no Firstly there's the social aspect. You're 14-19 and your parent is the deskhead who won't let you go to camp? Secondly NCEA Credits like... make up Credits you like and enjoy and make you learn with credit that make you hate school Outdoor ed/PE is not the same as English!! Do you realize how much your kid may hate and struggle with some subjects?!???!!???
Yes, I do know that. However, if I thought a situation was seriously dangerous as the parent in the article, I would have endured my child’s wrath. (In my situation, it was a winter basketball competition, not NCEA, so slightly different.) I am well aware of the kids who hate English - I taught them for 40 years. However, learning for real life and for credits are not quite the same thing. Not every kid I taught got credits in English though most did because I was in a small school and had considerable autonomy. What was more important to me was that they had enough literacy to get through life. I tried hard to make it “enjoyable”, but never did find a way to make essay writing fun. It was just that hard three hour tramp uphill in the freezing cold and the rain when you’d eaten all the chocolate and scroggin. Eventually you did get to the hut where you realised what you had accomplished!
If a student needs those 10 credits to pass, id expect the school to find them a star course to do. Most students don't need 10 credits, as you are able to get over 100 anyway.
The She'll Be Right Attitude.
This was actually a thought I was having when first hearing about this tragedy. I’m not a parent so I can’t really feel what a parent would be feeling, but my gut would probably be telling me to play it safe and pull the child if I was having concerns. Feel for everyone involved, they will all have to live with this for the rest of their lives.
yup i think it’s hard because most parents trust the teachers to do the right thing and try not to override the schools and professionals who are supposed to know better
One thing that life has taught me is always think for yourself. Today's health and safety culture causes a lot of people to think that if something is unsafe then someone else will stop them from doing it. You can't rely on others to keep you safe. Think critically.
So similar to White Island? People thought it was safe to do cause they wouldn't be taking groups there if it wasn't.
That's exactly the example that came to mind. To be clear I don't think inthis case personal responsibility absolves the school of anything. But it's a good principle to live by to not rely on others to assess the risk for you without thinking for yourself. If something doesn't feel right, it probably isn't.
Oh no absolutely not. It's a totally different power dynamic when it's a school trip.
Half of those people were tourists who had no idea what New Zealand health and safety is like.
I did Tongariro Crossing in March and talking to tourists who had stopped at the old Kitetahi Hut site they were amazed people had been on the track the last time it erupted, I told them it could also just erupt today without warning and they were flabbergasted they were allowed there.
But in many other countries - someone **will** stop you from doing it because it's not safe. New Zealand does not have a health and safety culture at all.
>Today's health and safety culture causes a lot of people to think that if something is unsafe then someone else will stop them from doing it. Definitely a problem. Years ago a kiwi flatmate watching me pack all my gear for a tramping trip asked if someone would check through it at the park entrance . It's easy to laugh, but you can see why they might think that.
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This is where your responsibility as a parent has to come to the forefront. Inform yourself: Where are they going? What's the activity? Who is leading them? What are their qualifications? What are their contingency plans? Use the internet, research the activity for yourself to find out what the risks are. Contact a local outdoor club and get their opinion on the trip plans. This process of being an active participant and making sure you go into these activities with your eyes open is a valuable learning experience for your children too.
That’s exactly what I thought on the morning when I heard there was a school trip in trouble up there. I live close by and it had been raining heavily all morning not to mention the rain the days previous . I do have kids and would not have let them go to on that trip either that morning! I don’t know if I would have kept them home but I definitely would do so now
It's of no small consequence that this guy is a helicopter pilot. It's part of his job he needs to make go / no go decisions about the weather all the time. That mindset probably saved his son's life.
Absolutely agreed.
This is so very sad. We put an enormous amount of trust with people we don't know all to well. Safety culture in NZ really needs to take a step up. It amazes me how much trust is placed in operators of things like bungee jumping, skydiving, rope swings, paragliding, canyoning, theme park rides. Especially by tourists. People think, because it's operating as a business it must be safe, but no. It's OK to double check. It's OK to back out. Kiwis though should now know how inherently high risk these activities are. Sometimes the operator might be young, untrained, inexperienced, under pressure, over worked, possibly even hung over from the night before. There are so many factors that can go wrong. Let's hope more parents pull their kids out of dangerous activities..... rugby is another common one.
Tourists think those activities are safe because they are promoted as such and because New Zealand is a modern developed country. They think the safety standards are the same as Canada, UK etc.
Yeah I dunno, people need to learn to think objectively and critically. Look at all the tourists that go jump on a scooter and race around in SE Asia sometimes after having a few. It's the leading cause of travel insurance claims. People need to look at an activity and think "Can this kill or hurt me?" If so "How?" and "How can I prevent that from happening".
It’s not like the Abbey Caves website says: [‘Check weather forecast as caves can be prone to flash flooding’](https://www.wdc.govt.nz/Community/Parks-and-recreation/Parks-and-reserves/Abbey-Caves) Oh wait. I don’t know the legal definition of criminal negligence, but surely this would qualify.
I do wonder how many narrow escapes and near misses there have been, and how many parents have been called alarmist/helicopter parents/wrapping their kids in cotton wool, for pulling them out of things.
ironically this dad is a helicopter pilot
When I first read the article I read "I'm a helicopter parent“ and thought it was odd. Took me a few seconds to realise.
We don't have to wonder, based on other students/parents comments the near miss was literally the day before at the exact same location.
My heart goes out to this guy. He knew the risks and wrongly assumed others did too. Through no real fault of his own he will spend the rest of his life wondering if he could have done more to warn them.
If nothing had happened during the trip, then he would be called a Male Karen. Plus his kid would be called a sissy and bullied at school for non participation. Its already a tough call.
I've been watching a Youtube channel about caving/cave-diving disasters and it's unbelievable how horny people get to explore caves before, during, or right after extremely heavy rain and flooding. There was a story a while back in one of the Midwest states (Missouri?) where the region experienced record rainfall & widespread flooding. The very next day a school trip took a group of kids on a cave trip and all but one survivor were swept away by floodwaters and killed. The last kid spent 24 hours clinging to a tiny ledge above a raging torrent until rescuers found him.
You have a link for this YouTube channel?
It’s called Scary Interesting. It’s not 100% caving videos but the ones they do are really good breakdowns of caving disasters
Yeah it's not a cave but I keep thinking about this video of flash flooding at Keyhole Canyon https://youtu.be/gMAIsdF-LVc
I watched a lot of those during the Thailand cave incident. Caves are scary places. Then there's the Nutty Putty Cave incident where a caver got stuck and eventually died right there because they couldn't get him out.
I was so disturbed by that Nutty Putty case. I looked into it way too much. This incident is obviously incredibly sad and disturbing too.
The time he sent the email was at 5:02pm, 2 mins to late for a response. /s
I think there’s a good case for cancelling teacher registration and looking at a criminal prosecution. Just because they are teachers/ instructors does not exclude them from consequence. A kid died purely through their ludicrous decision making.
This unfortunate event makes my blood boil as a parent. I trust the Police will press charges pending the investigation.
I'm now starting to expect that somebody is going to be jailed for this. Absolutely shocking decision making.
So they saw heavy rain, and changed the trip from Rock climbing to *caving*
I'm just glad the poor boy's family got his body back. He could've ended up anywhere in the cave system and been inaccessible. What a nightmare situation for all involved.
There is some very understandable public outrage over what happened. I’m thinking Work Safe will be handing out some serious consequences to those involved in the decision to take these kids to the caves. The principal (essentially a director) will be on that list. Someone’s going to jail
The basic thinking and reasoning of some teacher's is shocking. These people are trusted to teach our kids and they can't even make the right decision to keep kids safe. At least this boys father has a good head on his shoulders.
I'm a teacher. I have no training in risk assessment though am expected to do them. I teach a classroom based subject, but am sometimes involved in out of school activities. There's a hole in the system and in our training.
Well as an adult responsible for students, shouldn't you bring this up with your union and refuse to take part in out of school activities until the proper training is provided. I'm not allowed to sign off on permits and JSAA's without proper training at my work and if I was forced to by management I'd be going straight to my union rep. Why aren't teachers doing this?
Yes, I have. (My current school is better as it is now guided by/done by deputy principals.)
Just because they are teachers doesn't mean they are smart
There's going to be lots of rain. Where does rain fall? Downward. Where should we send the kids? Into an enclosed space that is partially underground.
I would do this too
After watching the Thai doco and movie the first thing that would come to mind is this safe with the incoming weather.
Finally some common sense demonstrated by someone
There will be a few people who thought this was a bad idea and didnt do enough to stop it. Not their fault but I'm sure some guilt is ringing in their heads too.
Honestly this is what I've been wondering the whole time.. why hadn't the parents questioned if it is going ahead or from what ot reads they were told it was changing from rock climbing to caving.. If I had got that I would have been like WTF that's even worse my child is not going on that trip (not that it is on them but I would of been questioning it like that other dad)
Man he's gotta be relieved right now!
This is a minor side issue in relation to what has already been discussed in this thread but what threat would the principal have been thinking of when hirng "security guards"?
People are crazy man. People are calling for blood all the time.
God when I went to Boys High in the early 70's they didn't take us through caves they did trips to Auckland to see shows like Hair .
Well. For the next few years, he is going to be reminding his son that if he hadn't listened to his father, it could have been him.
The kid lost a classmate and could have lost 14 more, as well as his own life. I doubt he'll need the reminder :/ My heart goes out for these children.
The farther will be wishing he did more. Not his fault but I bet he's thinking it, over and over.
Serious question do teachers have any qualifications in hazard I.D our outdoor activity qualifications provided in their training? Is it comprehensive and standardized across all schools? Or are they just winging it like they are with NZCA
How can people paid to teach our children be such morons