Risk Management

Does your Program Have a Road Crossing Protocol? Should it?

2012-06-11T01:15:00Z

What’s the most dangerous thing that your outdoor program does?

The answer: Vehicles.

Driving is statistically the most dangerous activity for any outdoor program. Because vehicular accidents can be so serious many programs have specific risk management protocols--things like mandatory driver training, specific vehicle driving protocols, specialized license requirements like a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) or background motor vehicle checks on drivers. Those are just some of the proactive risk management strategies to help reduce the potential for vehicular accidents.

If driving in vehicles is so dangerous, what about other activities that expose your participants to vehicles, like crossing high trafficked roads? Isn’t this a high risk activity? I say the answer is yes. And yet many programs don’t specifically have a Road Crossing Protocol. I think road crossing has been seriously overlooked as a risk management issue for outdoor programs. Why is that?

Let’s take a look at another ‘crossing protocol.’ Most programs have specific protocols for river crossings like unbuckling hipbelts and chest straps to be able to shed the pack quickly. When you come to a river crossing, you assess a whole range of factors to determine if the crossing is hazardous including (but not limited to):

depth of the river
speed of the current
width of the river
possible downstream hazards like strainers and waterfalls
water temperature

Based on this data you determine if there are significant risks in doing the crossing. If the river is only 6 inches deep and 5 feet across, you may decide that people don’t need to implement a protocol like unbuckling their hipbelts before stepping across. If it’s 3+ feet deep and 30 feet across you’d initiate the protocol to undo hipbelts. There might also be a series of other specific actions you would take to safely cross the river. If crossing a river can be hazardous and need special protocols to reduce the risk, why not specific protocols for crossing roads?

The first reason that road crossing has often been ignored is that not all programs operate in areas where travelers have to deal with road crossings. If you are running your backpacking program in the Wind River Range in Wyoming or the Hundred Mile Wilderness in Maine, roads simply aren’t an issue. If, on the other hand, you run trips up and down the Appalachian Trail for example, road crossings can be a daily occurrence. Having run programs for over thirty years on the Appalachian Trail, I can tell you that there are some significantly dangerous road crossings along the AT.

Here are a few that I’ve come in contact with. The first is on the Appalachian Trail in New Jersey at Route 206 in Culver’s Gap. The AT crosses Route 206, a busy, high trafficked road that can present real hazards to a group at certain times of day. The next is in Harriman State Park in New York. The AT (also called the Ramapo-Dunderburg Trail) in the park crosses the Palisades Parkway. The Palisades is a two-lane divided highway with no shoulder and a grassy median in the center. I’ve crossed it safely with a group in the early afternoon when there is little traffic. At rush hour it is a constant stream of cars traveling 65+ mph in both directions. There is literally no way to get across until the traffic dies down. And these are just some of the examples.

So what can you do to address the risk associated with high speed vehicular traffic on roads?

The first thing I advise your program to do is to assess the areas that you are traveling in and determine if road crossing is a hazard in specific locations. If you find that to be the case then you should approach the issue just as you would any other identified hazard—assess the hazards and develop strategies to mitigate them.
Next implement a Road Crossing Protocol that teaches your staff how to assess the hazards of a particular road crossing and specific guidelines for how to reduce the risk of the road crossing. What I present here is a sample road crossing protocol for your consideration.

Sample Road Crossing Protocol

Our trips must often cross roads. This can be hazardous due to the unpredictable nature of drivers and traffic. In order to safeguard all members of the group, leaders should be cautious and use good judgment. The procedures below outline the expectations for leaders crossing roads:

Like river crossings we can identify a number of factors that can increase the risk level of road crossings:

“Density” of vehicular traffic
Width of Roadway
Speed of the traffic
Type of vehicles (trucks and buses have a much longer stopping distance than cars)
Visibility in both directions for crossers to be able to see oncoming traffic and assess the scene
Time required to cross the road (in relation to the amount and speed of vehicular traffic and visibility)
Visibility for drivers (is it dawn, dusk, foggy, rainy?)
Road conditions (is the road wet, icy, etc.)

Let me give you an example from the Palisades Parkway in Harriman State Park. At one of the trail crossings there is a curve in the road to the north limiting visibility. In timing the traffic on one occasion I noted that from the time the vehicle was first visible coming from the north to the time it got to the trail crossing was 19 seconds. Timing a person with a full backpack crossing the road at a walking pace it took about 10 seconds. If the car is traveling 65 MPH then the extra 9 seconds is not a lot of leeway. A car can travel hundreds of feet in 9 seconds and even if the driver sees the person and steps on the brakes immediately, the car still requires a significant distance to stop and is coming closer to the person every second. What if the person has trouble getting across the road? What is the driver is distracted or texting? What if the road conditions are slippery or the tires or brakes on the car are bad? Based on this risk assessment I determined that we should implement a Road Crossing Policy (described below).

Know your route ahead of time: Know when and where you must cross a road. As you plan the day’s route, keep these road crossings in mind. When will they occur: early morning, mid-day, late afternoon? Obviously, having to cross a road in the dark can also increase the accident potential. Have an idea what type of road you are crossing. Is it a backcountry road with little or no traffic or a busy interstate? Will it be empty at certain times of the day and extremely busy at rush hour? Check the guidebooks to the area for specific information and include a plan of how/when to cross the road ahead of time.
Assess the crossing: When you arrive at the crossing area, assess the situation for a good place to cross. Where is the point you are supposed to arrive at on the other side of the road in comparison with your point of departure? Is it straight across the road, diagonal, or do you have to walk down the roadway for a distance? Also assess the visibility at the crossing point, taking into account your ability to see or hear oncoming traffic and their ability to see you. You should have good visibility down the road in either direction. If you have good visibility for traffic, have the group members cross the road as they would any roadway, looking carefully in both directions and proceeding across when it is safe to do so.
Compensate for Reduced visibility: If the crossing spot does not have such visibility, post a watcher at a location along the road to give you that visibility. You may need more than one watcher so as to monitor traffic from both directions simultaneously. Watchers are there to signal to the other group members when it is safe to cross the road. Watchers should be off the road on the shoulder. All trip members should understand the crossing signals from the watcher, and not cross until they receive that signal. Adapting signals from the AWA Canoeing Safety signals, one arm straight over head means SAFE TO CROSS FROM THIS DIRECTION. ONLY signal in the affirmative meaning that it is OK to cross. No signal means it is not year clear to cross. In any crossing situation the group members should look carefully in both directions and move across the road reasonably quickly. One of the leaders should be on hand at the crossing site.
Cross one person at a time: When you decide you are going to implement this protocol, the most controlled way to cross a busy road is one person at a time. That way there is only one person moving to keep an eye on. If a vehicle is coming that person can respond. Having multiple people crossing at once means that Person A might go one way and Person B go another, increasing the possibility that someone might be hit.
Crossing roads at night: It is best to avoid crossing roads at night. It may be safer to camp (even illegally) and get up early to make up mileage than to cross a busy road at night. Leaders must use their best judgment on what is the safest course of action. If you do decide to cross at night, you should use the precautions listed above. In addition, each group member should have a flashlight out to be able to see the road surface they are crossing. If you need to use watchers, they should be posted with flashlights. Three on-off flashes of the light in quick succession from the watchers means SAFE TO CROSS FROM THIS DIRECTION.
Walking along roads: If your route requires that you walk along a road for any length of time, you should use the following procedures: Walk on the side of the road with the widest shoulder (if there is one). Walk in a single file line. It may be better (as runners often do) to walk on the side of the road facing traffic so you can see oncoming traffic and more quickly move away if needed. One leader should be in front and one in the rear to manage the group. Be especially careful at curves where drivers may not be able to see you. Walking along long sections of road a night should be avoided whenever possible. If you must walk, everyone should have a headlamp and should walk on the side of the road facing traffic to maximize your visibility.
Unloading buses: Buses should be unloaded from the curbside. Pull things through the luggage bays whenever possible to avoid unloading on the street side.
Crossing near buses: If you are dropped off by bus along a roadside, make sure that you have good visibility in either direction before crossing in front of or behind the bus. Either wait for the bus to pull out before you cross, or use the road crossing procedures outlines above.
Crossing with canoes: Portaging a canoe across the road means understanding that you are transporting a bulky object and will be moving more slowly. When you have to cross a road with canoes it is important to follow the procedures above. In addition, the canoes should be emptied of all gear so that they can be carried quickly. Find the best route across the road and use that area. Post watchers (in both directions if necessary to signal cars to slow down and/or to indicate when it is safe to cross using the methods outlined above). Two to four people should carry the canoe at waist level, on the bow and on the stern. Do not carry the canoe over your head, it is too difficult to quickly jettison the canoe.

Now that I’ve explained the protocol, let me go back to the Palisades Parkway example. It was early afternoon so traffic was not very heavy. However the lack of visibility to the north because of the curve meant that a car would suddenly appear with only 19 seconds ‘warning.’ We sent one person down to the corner who could see significantly farther north. When that person saw that it was clear of traffic she raised her arm over her head indicating that it was clear to cross. That allowed people to cross to the grassy median. Then we implemented the same system for the next two lanes of traffic coming up from the south.

Protocols are one thing, judgment is another. There is a famous quote from Paul Petzoldt, founder of the National Outdoor Leadership School. He said, “rules are for fools.” Taken out of context a lot of people have interpreted this statement to mean that Paul rejected protocols. On the contrary. Drew Leemon, NOLS Risk Manager, once asked Petzoldt what he meant. Petzoldt explained that protocols were useful and necessary, for example, a protocol that requires people to wear life jackets on the river is a good thing. What he meant was that you can’t write a protocol/rule for every situation and the person who thinks you can take some huge rule book into the wilderness to just decide how to handle all situations is a fool. In the end Protocols work hand in hand with Instructor Judgment. A Road Crossing protocol (or any protocol) is a tool. It requires judgment to decide when to use the tool to effectively reduce hazards. I don’t use the Road Crossing protocol every time I cross a road, just like I don’t unbuckle a hipbelt every time I cross a stream. The job of the instructor is to assess if the road crossing presents a significant hazard. If it does, the protocol provides a tool to mitigate the hazard.

In order to offer a ‘complete’ risk management perspective on this, you should consult with your legal counsel about the potential liabilities associated both with having or not having a road crossing protocol. This is not (at least not yet) an ‘accepted industry standard’ like lightning protocols are. As a result, you need, with legal advice, to determine if this in your program’s best interest from a legal liability perspective. I believe that it does mitigate many of the hazards of road crossings, but risk mitigation is not necessarily the same thing as liability mitigation. Some legal experts might argue that people (specifically adults) cross roads all the time and are fully capable of making their own decisions about crossing safety so having a protocol places an increased burden on the program to manage an individual’s safety. In this case, the legal advice might be to not have a protocol and assume no responsibility for managing people’s risk when crossing roads. However, if you work with minors then they might be considered not to have the experience to assess the hazard and make appropriate decisions. My personal feeling is that this is fundamentally an ethical issue first and a legal issue second. If I know of a hazard that my participants are not aware of or would not consider (regardless of their age) then it is my moral obligation to inform them of the hazards and, I believe, to take a step further than that which is to provide a protocol for mitigating the hazard.

For more information on managing risk I suggest you read the Risk Assessment and Safety Management (RASM) model which I developed and which is in use by outdoor programs throughout the US and internationally.

'Brain Buckets' - A Climber's Best Friend?

2012-02-13T05:24:00Z

I am dating myself, but when I started rock climbing, almost everyone wore helmets. It was as essential a piece of gear as your harness and shoes. But in the decades that followed, helmets became passe. Part of that change had to do with climbing styles and style (fashion) in climbing. Some comes from a misunderstanding of risk and people assuming that helmets are only to protect you from rockfall (no rockfall means no helmet needed). But it's not that simple, let me tell you my friend Dan's story.

Dan was lead climbing in the Gunks in New York in the late 80's and he was wearing a helmet. In part that's because he was an EMT and in medical school and he valued his brain. Dan took a lead fall and pendulumed, smacking the side of his helmet against the rock (no rock fall here). He hit so hard that his 1980's (heavy) fiberglass helmet cracked and Dan hung in the air unconscious for 20 minutes while his belayer held him in place, unable to lower him and other climbers initiated a rescue. For those of you with first aid training, he had a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and was immediately transported to the local ER. He regained consciousness on the way and was treated and eventually released. But his medical problems didn't stop there. He had significant short term memory loss for the next 6 months. If you told him that you had a bagel for lunch and then asked him what you had for lunch, he couldn't remember. It was pretty hard being a medical student when you can't remember what your patients tell you from moment to moment. He also had double vision in one eye from retinal damage due to the impact. When he looked straight ahead with his right eye he saw double but if he looked down his vision was normal. He ended up having surgery to cut and resew the muscles in his right eye so that the right eyeball was 'tilted' up. Then when he looked straight forward he was looking out of the bottom of his eye and could see normally. Dan was convinced that without a helmet he would have died or had permanent extensive brain damage. I've continued to wear a helmet ever since.

Helmets are not just for rock fall, they're also for falls on rock. Some climbing areas are know for loose rock so people wear helmets there and not in other places. But falls on rock are a lot more common and it's not just lead falls. Inverted falls can happen in lead and sport and can easily result in head impact. We now know a lot more about TBI in sports thanks to research on football, hockey, soccer and boxing injuries. Repeated small TBIs can lead to permanent damage just as a dramatic high impact whipper like Dan's can. Traumatic Brain Injury is serious business so any climber needs to keep both of those things in mind when making the decision about wearing a helmet. Helmet technology has come so far in the last five years with lighter designs that the excuses about it being too heavy no longer hold water.

There's a Facebook photo that recent caused a lot of controversy, a single mother climbing with a toddler on her back with lots of people saying it was irresponsible. What I found most irresponsible is that the woman and her belayer both had helmets on but the toddler didn't. Both adults considered the hazard of climbing required a helmet but the toddler had no such protection. Crazy if you ask me.

The British Mountaineering Council (BMC) is running a helmet safety campaign to educate climbers about helmet use and I applaud them for this effort. You can read more about their campaign along with guides to helmets at the following sites:

Yes, I wear a helmet biking, whitewater kayaking, Telemark skiing and climbing. Brain buckets may have once been a derogatory term, but thanks to Dan's lesson, I value my brain and am happy to keep it safe in a bucket, especially now that they are so stylin'.

Skier Intentionally Triggers Huge Avalanche in Teton Backcountry

2012-01-30T02:49:00Z

I just got back from skiing at Jackson Hole last week. Like much of the west the snow pack has been really low all winter. Jackson Hole only had a 44 inch (old) base when I arrived. Starting with the day I arrived (Wednesday, January 18) the snow started falling and in a series of storms over 55 inches fell over the next five days. With an old base it created what the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center rated as "Considerable Avalanche Danger."

On returning to the east coast I read about a significant avalanche in the Teton Backcountry on Mt. Taylor. This slide has created a significant buzz in the backcountry skiing blogosphere since it was intentionally triggered by a professional guide who the made a ski cut above a popular line, intending to release an small avalanche and make the slope safer for him and his party. "The huge slide ran 2,600 vertical feet and took out previous tracks and part of the uphill track. It crossed Coal Creek and ran up over the opposite slope and left a 30-foot-deep deposit of snow and debris. No one was injured in the incident, but search and rescue teams responded to make sure no one was buried or carried." Truly a killer avalanche if anyone had been it it's path. The skier who triggered the avalanche skied down the slope with his beacon on to see if anyone was caught in the slide. Search and Rescue teams also responded to the slide but no one was caught in it.

You'll see a broad range of comments online at TetonAT.com with points of view from "this is no big deal" to "hugely irresponsible behavior." I encourage you to browse the comments and you'll see the range of attitudes some of which espose responsible decision-making and others who suggest that 'what you do is your own business.' Some of these I found just plan scary and I hope I am never downslope from people who think the latter.

One point that I want to make here is that the decisions that we make in the backcountry, don't just affect us and our group. Although no one was hurt in this avalanche, other groups could have been below resulting in potentially catastrophic results. One common risk management error is "the expert on his/her own turf" which could be one explanation for this behavior. Being in "our element" sometimes blinds us to the potential risks and the fact that one has skied an area "1,000 times" doesn't somehow make you safer. Sure, site knowledge like slide paths, previous avalanche history and stability are all pieces of data, but not a license to make decisions that put other people at serious risk.

http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/article.php?art_id=8177

http://www.tetonvalleynews.net/news/massive-slide-on-taylor-highlights-avalanche-danger/article_9e5a2fdc-47b2-11e1-9ce0-001871e3ce6c.html

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Does Wyoming state law give too much protection to outdoor recreation providers?

2011-11-07T05:10:00Z

This is a fascinating article by Ben Goose from WyoFile.com that explores some of the issues about the Wyoming Recreation Safety Act. While different states have different laws on the books, understanding how the Wyoming Laws are interpreted may shed light on some important risk management issues for your program. The bottom line is don't cut corners for safety, your clients and the long-term future of your organization depend on it. Thanks to Catherine Hansen-Stamp of The Recreation Law Center for identifying this resource.

by Ben Goose
reprinted from WyoFile.com

On July 18, Elizabeth Burns was on the first day of a backpacking trip in the Absoraka Range with Wilderness Ventures, a company based in Jackson. The two-week trip was a highly anticipated break from routine for the high-school junior from a Chicago suburb. She told friends she was looking forward to getting away from her cell phone and computer and meeting new people.

That afternoon, Ms. Burns likely experienced beautiful vistas, a good sweat, and the universal joy of dropping a heavy pack from her shoulders. But not long after arriving at the first night’s camp site, four miles east of the Turpin Meadows trail head, things went horribly wrong.

The Absorakas are prime grizzly country, and some members of the group went to hang food in “bear bags” in a tree. Beetles have killed many of the pine trees in Wyoming’s mountains, and the backpackers may have been limited in their options. It is unclear what guidance, if any, was offered by the trip’s two leaders. Someone made the fateful decision to hang the bags in a dead tree. (Mike Cottingham, who along with his wife, Helen, is a founder and owner of the company, declined to answer questions for this article.)

As the bear bags were hefted into the air, the 75-foot tall tree uprooted and fell, striking Ms. Burns some 66 feet away, according to a report by the Teton County Sheriff’s Office. She never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead two hours later.

Thrills, risks, and lawsuits

Wyoming’s rugged beauty makes it a big draw for outdoor-recreation enthusiasts, who come to ski, hike, raft, climb, hunt, fish, and ride horses. Tourism is Wyoming’s second biggest industry, after mineral extraction, producing more than $1-billion per year in revenue. Outdoor recreation is usually what the visitors are seeking.

But with the thrills come plenty of risks. Every year, people like Elizabeth Burns—clients of Wyoming companies—die or suffer serious injuries while recreating in the great outdoors.

And, not surprisingly, some of them sue. More often than not, an out-of-state visitor is suing a Wyoming company.

In 1989, the Wyoming Legislature addressed the litigation concerns, at the prodding of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and other ski resorts. The Wyoming Recreation Safety Act makes clear that clients of recreation companies assume the “inherent risk” of the activity in which they’re participating.

The law has been described as the one of the strongest in the country at providing protections for outdoor-recreation companies, and lawmakers have bolstered it more than once. Courts have not only thrown out lawsuits in clear-cut cases—like the skier who died after willingly going off a 25-foot terrain-park jump at Jackson Hole—but have also rejected claims in less-obvious cases, including injuries resulting from slipping saddles and chair lifts.

Ask just about any personal-injury attorney in Wyoming, and they’ll tell you that the protections are so strong that they decline to take on many of the injured recreationalists who come to their door. The same attorneys say the Recreation Safety Act may have so successfully achieved its goal of deterring litigation that some struggling outfitters or recreation companies could be cutting corners on safety—thanks to the comfort that any resulting accidents might be whisked away by the “inherent risk” doctrine.

“It creates in providers a sense of security, and maybe some of them do not go as far as they would otherwise be inclined to go if they thought they were more exposed to the risks of litigation,” says Gary Shockey, a lawyer in Jackson.

To be sure, plaintiff’s attorneys are a biased group. But even some judges have expressed dismay at the law that they must uphold.

“Consumers in Wyoming are now faced with an entire industry whose economic and consequent legislative power enables them to conduct business with only a passing thought to the safety of those who utilize their services,” William F. Downes, a federal district-court judge, editorialized back in 1998, in his opinion that dismissed the claim brought by a man who was injured when his saddle slipped.

No one has suggested that Wilderness Ventures is that kind of company. Former employees and Jackson residents praise the company’s professionalism and safety record. The company, which has been in business for 38 years, notes on its Web site that it has helped 2,100 students climb Wyoming’s Grand Teton, and another 2,200 scale Washington’s Mount Rainier, all without injury.

Elizabeth Burns died less than four months ago, and her parents, Sally and Michael Burns, are still in mourning. Sally Burns and the family’s attorney, Thomas A. Demetrio, a prominent personal-injury lawyer in Chicago, declined to comment for this article.

If the case ends up in court, the outcome may help further illuminate how much protection the Wyoming Recreation Safety Act provides.

Falling trees are clearly a risk of hiking and camping in Wyoming—and one that will no doubt rise in the years to come. But any Wyoming company in the backpacking business would know why dead pine trees are known as “widow makers.” A 16-year-old from Lake Forest, Ill., might not share the same knowledge.

A court may ultimately have to decide if Wilderness Ventures did enough to keep Ms. Burns out of harm’s way—or if, in the case of a falling tree, the company had no obligation to do so.

“There’s a lot of ambiguity,” says Terry Mackey, a personal-injury lawyer in Cheyenne, “in the term ‘inherent risk.’”

A Chilling Effect

Steve Duerr is currently about as far away from recreation litigation as you can get—he’s the director of the Murie Center, a nonprofit in Grand Teton National Park that helps people understand the value of conserving wildlife and wild places. But in the 1980s, he was general counsel at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort—which was then, as now, among the biggest targets in Wyoming for recreation-related lawsuits.

Duerr wrote much of the Wyoming Recreation Safety Act. And he has retained an interest in recreation law, even as he has moved into the quieter nonprofit arena. In September, Duerr and several other lawyers participated in a panel discussion on the Recreation Safety Act at the Wyoming State Bar’s annual meeting in Cheyenne.

“The law does have a chilling effect on the types of cases that lawyers bring to court,” Duerr says. “That was the desired public policy.”

As Duerr noted in a presentation last month at the Cheyenne meeting, Wyoming’s law came into being at a time when other states were passing similar bills to grapple with the public’s increasing eagerness to sue. In 1978, a skier in Vermont tripped over some underbrush and broke his neck—and a jury ruled that Stratton Mountain Corporation owed him $1.5-million in damages.

A Time magazine piece at the time said such judgments were pushing up the cost of insurance and—hold your laughter—“raising the specter of $25 to $35 a day lift tickets.” To keep insurance rates for their ski resorts affordable, states like Vermont, Colorado, and Wyoming began passing laws that limited the liability of ski corporations.

Earlier court rulings lent historical precedent to the movement. In a 1929 case in New York, Judge Benjamin Cardozo, who later became a U.S. Supreme Court justice, ruled that when a man fell and fractured his knee cap on an amusement-park ride called “The Flopper,” he had assumed the risk of riding the moving belt.

“The timorous may stay at home,” Judge Cardozo wrote.

That sentiment plays well in Wyoming, which prizes self reliance and personal responsibility.

“If you ask people on the street what they think, they would tell you what the Recreation Safety Act has now codified: ‘You get on a horse, you strap on those skis, and you’re taking your chances,’” says Jim Lubing, a Jackson lawyer who has been defending Jackson Hole Mountain Resort from lawsuits for the past decade.

Kate Mead, another Jackson lawyer who defends outdoor-recreation providers, knows all too well about such risks. She is married to Brad Mead, the brother of Gov. Matt Mead. Their mother, Mary Mead, died in a horse accident in Grand Teton National park in 1996 while driving cattle.

Kate Mead says that in her most recent case involving the Recreation Safety Act, the plaintiff testified about how much fun he had been having until he was injured.

“That sums it up,” she says. “People really want to enjoy the adrenaline things in life—until they get hurt.”

The Legislature Strikes Back

Over the past 22 years, Wyoming courts and juries have grappled with the meaning of “inherent risk”—which may be among the fuzziest terms in Wyoming law. And when the answer has been unfavorable to recreation providers, the Legislature has been quick to take action.

In a 1995 case, Halpern v. Wheeldon, one of the first tests of the act’s strength, a man who severely broke his ankle after being bucked off a horse later sued the trail-ride provider. The trial court found that getting bucked off a horse was an inherent risk.

At the time, the act stated that recreation providers were “not required to eliminate, alter or control the inherent risks.” On appeal, the Wyoming Supreme Court deduced that an inherent risk is one that can’t be controlled or eliminated. The court said it was possible that the Wheeldons could have eliminated the risk of getting on the horse by helping Mr. Halpern mount in a different way. It said the trial court had erred in dismissing the case.

That wasn’t the kind of decision that ski corporations and dude ranches had envisioned when they helped shepherd the Recreation Safety Act into law. They hired lobbyists and went back to Cheyenne. In 1996, the Legislature amended the act, taking out the language about eliminating or controlling inherent risks.

“The law was changed by the Legislature to make it even more protective of providers,” says Mel Orchard, a partner with the Spence Law Firm in Jackson. “It changed essentially to say that the provider had no duty to alter the activity to reduce risk.”

One year later, in 1997, Howard Cooperman, a novice rider, injured his shoulder when his saddle slipped on a trail ride with Wyoming Rivers and Trails outside Pinedale. After an expert witness testified that slipping saddles were an inherent risk of horseback riding, Judge Downes threw out Cooperman’s lawsuit. Whether the company made an appropriate effort to cinch the saddle was irrelevant, the federal judge noted.

Judge Downes called it a “frightening prospect” that companies had no duty try to control such risks, but nevertheless stated that he would respect his place in the system.

“A court should not decimate the purpose of a legislative act, no matter how distasteful, when that purpose is clearly incorporated in the language of the act,” Judge Downes wrote.

The net result of such rulings is that Wyoming lawyers look long and hard before accepting clients who want to sue recreation providers, especially since lawyers often work on contingency, in which case they’re only paid if they win or settle the claim.

“If you take a case and put a lot of money and time into it, and the judge says you’ve got no case, then where are you?” asks William Fix, a lawyer in Jackson.

A 2005 article in the Suffolk University Law Review named Wyoming as the state that offers the “greatest protection” to recreation providers—a sentiment with which Mr. Fix and others agree. But there’s not unanimity on this topic.

James Moss, an attorney and professor in Colorado who specializes in recreation law, argues that Colorado’s Ski Safety Act (Colorado has sport-specific laws, rather than a broad act covering all recreation providers as in Wyoming) is stronger, because it names inherent risks like bare spots and lift towers that all skiers must accept.

“Wyoming’s act allows more litigation due to the fact that there’s less specificity in how it’s written,” Moss says.

But specificity can cut both ways. For example, after listing a slew of inherent risks, Colorado’s act states: “Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit the liability of the ski area operator for injury caused by the use or operation of ski lifts.”

Wyoming’s broader law, however, can give resorts cover even with ski lifts. In 2005, Sharon Muller suffered injuries to her leg and knee when her ski boot got caught under the Bridger Gondola at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. When she sued, a federal jury sided with the ski resort, concluding that boarding a ski lift is an inherent risk of skiing. The ruling was later upheld by the Wyoming Supreme Court.

A Constitutional Challenge

Fix, who represented Muller, challenged the constitutionality of the Recreation Safety Act on appeal. Fix says Wyoming law treats people who buy a service from a recreation provider worse than those who buy a service or product from other types of companies.

“It’s singling out a class,” Fix says. “We are all supposed to stand equal under the law.”

In upholding the decision favoring the resort, the Wyoming Supreme Court didn’t rule on the constitutionality challenge.

Grant Larson, a Jackson resident and former state senator who helped introduced the 1996 amendments, says the Recreation Safety Act remains a “good law.”

“Surprise, surprise, the trial lawyers don’t like it,” Larson says. “Their job is to go sue people. That’s what the law was designed to prevent, particularly frivolous lawsuits.”

The most controversial claim some trial lawyers make is that the Recreation Safety Act is so strong in shielding providers from litigation that they may be cutting corners on safety.

“In my own experience in dealing with outfitters and other recreation providers, I believe that’s probably true,” says Mackey, the Cheyenne lawyer. “They probably don’t take things as seriously as they might otherwise if they didn’t have the solace of that statute.”

Mackey is on a legal team representing Christine Nodine, who sued Jackson Hole Mountain Resort after her husband, David, died in an in-bounds avalanche while skiing at the resort in December 2008. The resort argues that avalanches are an inherent risk of skiing.

Ms. Nodine maintains that the resort should have been aware of “unacceptably dangerous” conditions after another avalanche in the same area buried a snowboarder earlier in the day. Her lawsuit claims that the resort’s president, Jerry Blann, pressured the head of the ski patrol to open that portion of the mountain after two days of heavy snow for economic reasons. Blann has denied those allegations.

Mackey declined to comment on the Nodine case, since it is ongoing. (The case was recently dismissed on a technicality, but that ruling will likely be appealed.)

Jim Lubing, the resort’s lawyer, says the protections of the Recreation Safety Act would never factor into the resort’s decision-making about safety.

“I understand the argument, but certainly that reality does not apply to the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort,” Lubing says. “It’s a consummate professional organization, that ski patrol out there.”

Sacrificing safety?

Gary Shockey, the Jackson lawyer, says it is the companies that are just scraping by that may be most likely to sacrifice safety.

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if you’re operating on a budget, or on a time schedule, and you know that you have this state protection in the event that something you don’t want to have happen happens anyway, then you have no incentive to go the extra mile or spend the extra money on the part of safety,” he says.

Kate Mead, the Jackson lawyer who defends recreation providers, acknowledges that such thinking is possible, especially in a business like whitewater rafting where the season is short and the competition for tourist dollars is intense.

“They start with the low water in May, and then it goes to high water,” Mead says. “They’re not about to close down the river because it’s dangerous–the white-water rafting companies really count on that income. In any case where you have business involved, they’re doing some cost-benefit analysis along the way.”

Many of the deaths on the Snake River in recent years have occurred during the run-off in June and July. While whitewater companies operate in Snake River Canyon south of Jackson, the scenic tours float north of town, in front of the Tetons.

In 2006, a scenic raft operated by Grand Teton Lodge Company hit a dead cottonwood snagged in the river, throwing the guide and 12 clients into the Snake. Three passengers died, and the lodge settled for an undisclosed amount three years later with relatives of the victims. Mel Orchard, who represented the relatives, argued that the company had downplayed the risks in its marketing materials.

“It’s human nature for people to do things differently when they think they have no way of being punished,” he says. But he says he doesn’t believe that many recreation companies are sacrificing safety thanks to the protections of state law.

“I want to believe that our Wyoming companies are trying to provide reasonable recreation activities, and just want make a living for their families and provide a living for their employees,” he says.

Steve Duerr says there are plenty of “sticks” to encourage Wyoming providers to take adequate safety precautions, including requirements from insurance companies and permitting agencies like the U.S. Forest Service. He says it’s hard to believe that any company or employee, including the guide of the ill-fated scenic raft trip, would knowingly put clients in harm’s way because they believed that their legal vulnerability was low.

“I’m sure the guide on the Snake didn’t have in his mind, ‘I’m going to be protected by the inherent-risk statute,’” Duerr says.

Catherine Hansen-Stamp, an attorney and the author of two Wyoming Law Review articles about the Recreation Safety Act, says she would be surprised if any Wyoming companies were cutting corners due to protections provided by the act.

“The act doesn’t include an elimination of the ability to sue for negligence,” says Hansen-Stamp, who advises recreation providers on legal issues and risk management. “It certainly behooves recreation providers to endeavor to run a professional and quality operation and engage in responsible risk-management practices. This concept is the philosophy of my practice. If a provider is operating otherwise, they are making a huge mistake.”

Tom Holland is executive director of Teton Valley Ranch Camp, now based outside Dubois, which provides summer camps, including backpacking, non-technical climbing, fly-fishing and riflery, for students between the ages of 11 and 17. Part of his job is to travel to the living rooms of the camp’s alumni in cities throughout the country and pitch the benefits of his camps to teens and their parents. He tries to address the risks head-on.

“We say the experience your child will get out of this will be because of the challenges that come throughout the summer, and that come with the inherent risks of riding horses fast, climbing mountains in the Tetons, and going to riflery,” Holland says. “The special feeling they get will come from those risks being taken.”

The camp retains Hansen-Stamp for legal and risk-management advice, so Holland is well aware of the Recreation Safety Act, but he says he doesn’t think about its protections as he plans activities and staffing for the summer camps.

“I hear people say, ‘We’ve got this law on our side,’ but that’s not my approach,” Holland says. “My approach is I’m going to do to the very best I can, no matter what.”

Even so, many Wyoming recreation providers are careful to stipulate in the release forms that clients and students sign that any dispute will be governed by the laws of Wyoming. The National Outdoor Leadership School, which is based in Lander and runs wilderness skills and leadership courses all over the world, has a line in its release that states that lawsuits shall “be filed only in the State of Wyoming.”

Twelve students have died in the school’s 46-year history, including a student who fell from a steep trail in India in September, 2011. The school has never lost a case in court, although it has settled some lawsuits.

Drew Leemon, the school’s director of risk management, says the Recreation Safety Act is helpful mainly in deterring frivolous suits. “You get a little bit of protection from people who didn’t have a good time,” he says. “If somebody really gets hurt, you’re still exposed. And you care about your clients and you don’t want to see people get hurt.”

Hansen-Stamp wrote an informal paper about the evolution of the Recreation Safety Act for the Wyoming State Bar session in September. Hansen-Stamp, who lobbied for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort when the act was passed, suggests in her paper that some other states have laws that give even greater protection to recreation providers.

“The Wyoming act hasn’t really panned out to be the kind of pre-trial summary dismissal tool that I thought it might be,” she says.

A Shocking Verdict

One of the biggest blows to recreation companies in recent years came in 2009, when a federal jury awarded $1.2-million to the family of Kristina Barkhurst, who died after being thrown from a horse in January 2006. Barkhurst had been receiving training in natural horsemanship from a company near Burns called Harmony Horsemanship. The provider argued that being thrown was an inherent risk of riding. But Gary Shockey, who represented the family, maintained that the horse had a history of bolting, and that the provider had failed to provide proper equipment to control the horse.

Bud Betts, owner of the Absoraka Ranch in the Dunoir Valley outside Dubois, which operates pack trips and hunting trips, says the Barkhurst verdict “sent a mild shockwave through the horse community.” The decision had many, including Betts, wondering for a time whether the law needed to be strengthened yet again to make judges more likely to dismiss lawsuits before they get to a jury.

More than two decades after passage of the Wyoming Recreation Safety Act, the “inherent risk” doctrine remains the wild card at the heart of nearly all recreation-related litigation.

And if the Wilderness Ventures tragedy makes it to court, “inherent risk” will be at the heart of that case, too.

Bud Betts is of the view that it could have happened to anyone. On a pack trip he led this summer into the Washakie Wilderness, an aluminum kitchen box on top of a horse knocked over a dead lodgepole pine. The tree, 10 inches in diameter near the base, fortunately fell away at a 45 degree angle.

“It could have killed somebody, this tree,” Betts says. “You’re going to see more and more of that.”

But others say the facts of Ms. Burns’ death, if and when they come out, might demonstrate that human decision-making made her vulnerable.

“There are all kinds of inherent risks of backpacking,” says Gary Shockey, who is not involved in the case. “If I was going out with a guided group, I would not think that that list would include that the guide did not supervise things properly.

— Ben Gose is a Lander journalist who writes frequently for The Chronicle of Philanthropy and The Chronicle of Higher Education, and contributes to programs on Wyoming Public Television. He also coaches the sprinters on the Lander Valley High School track team.

A Perfect Storm - Lessons Learned from Hurricane Irene & Tropical Storm Lee

2011-10-03T02:47:00Z

This year took me by surprise, as I know it did for many of my colleagues and it was all about water. First came Hurricane Irene and then Tropical Storm Lee. Each September the Outdoor Action Program at Princeton University sends out over 1,000 students (800 freshmen and over 200 trip leaders) on our six-day outdoor orientation program. This year we had 95 trip groups out. This is the single largest program in the country; that is no one else sends out as many people at once as we do. In this post, for my friends and colleagues, I want to share my Lessons Learned, some old, some new about relocating over 1,000 students from a weather calamity in hopes that it is beneficial for your program..

In order to handle the logistics and the need for emergency response, I've built an extensive backend logistical structure (See Running Mega Programs 1 and Mega Programs 2 and Mega Programs 3 for more information). For each busload of students in the field we have at least one Support Team stationed nearby. This is a pair of students in a minivan staying in a motel near the trip area. They provide transports for minor medical issues, drop off water for groups in dry periods and resupply groups with equipment. Trip groups carry satellite or cell phones (depending on their location) to call out in the event of an emergency and they turn on their phones at 12:00 PM and 6:00 PM so that we can contact them if there is an issue. On campus we have a fully operational Command Center with a group of over a dozen volunteers who staff banks off phones, laptops, a large TV monitor hooked to a laptop, access to online trip routes, and participant lists and map boards of each area. This structure has served us well over may years.

This year was something different altogether. September is hurricane season so with our trips stretching from Virginia up to Vermont I am always tracking storms developing out in the Atlantic because of the potential for impacting our trips. So when Hurricane Irene approached the east coast at the end of August, I was on alert even though it was scheduled to hit New Jersey on Sunday, August 28 and our trips didn't leave until Sunday, September 4. Well Irene did hit and caused a shutdown of a number of our pre-trip training events since air and train transportation was significantly disrupted on the east coast for several days. Sunday brought tropical storm force winds and heavy rain to New Jersey leading to major power outages and significant flooding. It had already been an incredible wet summer in the east so the ground was already saturated before Hurricane Irene hit.

That's my First Lesson Learned--it's not just the big weather event like the hurricane, it's also the rest of the weather context that's been in play for the previous weeks or months. As you look ahead to your program planning, keep an eye on the meta-weather picture over the last month or more. Has it been an exceptional wet period? Has a drought been in place for months or longer? These longer time scale weather events can play a big role. In New Jersey, for example, the ground saturation was so bad with the wet summer that when Irene hit large trees were toppled over from the roots from a combination of super-saturated soil that could no longer support the root system and high winds that simply pushed the trees over. Earlier this summer a sixteen-year-old died on another organization's summer wilderness program in the Wind River Range when a dead tree toppled as students were hanging a bear bag. Certainly in the past I wouldn't have thought to warn my leaders about trees simply toppling over from saturated soil, but with this mega-saturation event, it was a real possibility - Second Lesson Learned - mega-weather events bring up new safety risks that may be outside of our normal "risk radar." While flooded streams and dangerous river crossings were in my mind all the time, I now add toppling trees to the list.

While Hurricane Irene cleared out of New Jersey on Monday, August 29 much of the state was in transportation gridlock until Tuesday, August 30. Downed trees and powerlines, flooded roads, closed airports brought transportation to a near standstill. As Monday wore on I began reviewing our status and checking the storm's impact on the various trip areas we were sending trips to. As I watched the news about how badly Vermont had been hit by the storm and the incredibly flooding and road damage I started thinking about our busload of students heading up there and began tracking down road closure information. Third Lesson Learned - the National 511 System. The Department of Transportation has a national 511 information system set up to provide realtime traffic information including road closures. Each state's Department of Transportation manages and implements their own online system. Start with www.fhwa.dot.gov/trafficinfo/index.htm. You can then drill down by state and it will link you to the State 511 Website. So I looked at Vermont and saw Rt. 9, one of our major trail access roads to the Appalachian Trail - closed due to flooding damage. I also used a free Website Sigalert.com. By default it is city-based but you can pick a nearby city and then scroll the map to see road closures and problems.

Emails from colleagues in college outdoor programs like John Abbott at the University of Vermont and contacts with the Green Mountain rangers brought the bad news, the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont was closed with a $10,000 fine for entering. So five trips cancelled on Monday, August 28. The news went from bad to worse. Flooding and catastrophic road damage in the Catskills resulted in the closure of the entire Catskills Park - 12 trips gone. Major flooding on the Delaware River washed away most of the riverside campgrounds. The National Park Service closed the Delaware River Corridor and all trails in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation area - 13 trips gone. The Housatonic River in Connecticut flooded washing out sections of the Appalachian Trail in the southern part of the state (5 trips gone). Seven Lakes Drive in Harriman State Park in New York had was damaged by flooding, the park was accessible from the northern entrance but officials decided to close the park - 5 more trips gone. All told we lost 40 trip routes in about 48 hours and had to replan trips to new locations in just 5 days. [For the record what I was dealing with was an inconvenience as compared to the personal tragedy, loss of life and property that victims of these storms had to endure.]

Fourth Lesson Learned - after a major weather event or national disaster, local officials have to allocate their resources sparingly. When they are stressed to the max just rescuing people from their homes, probably the last thing they want to add in is having to do Search & Rescue efforts on college outdoor orientation programs (or any other organized group) in the backcountry. So park closures can be due to major road closures in the area as well as damage to the park itself.

Fifth Lesson Learned - have more trips in your back pocket than you need. Earlier in the summer we had been scouting an area we used about 10 years ago. During the summer we decided that the 8 routes weren't as good as the ones we had on the books so we didn't use it. We ended up bringing this area and other old trip areas back online. There were pluses and minuses to this approach. I had some familiarity with these areas but in the extremely short time span we had to bring these areas online, there wasn't time to fully develop emergency site plans (so later we had to do it on the fly).

After all this trip reshuffling the weather cleared, all our freshmen arrived and our trips departed campus on Sunday, September 4, a beautiful sunny day. Once they all got dropped off by bus on Sunday, I took my first small sigh of the week. They are on the trail. So now I and the Command Center staff needed to stay attentive and handle whatever came our way over the next five days. I continued to watch the weather carefully. Sixth Lesson Learned - have a good online weather site/service. I've been using Accuweather Premium for years. It costs $80/year and some might say why pay when you can get it for free. Well, great radar, good 15 day forecasts and the ability to save 10 trip regions to quickly see weather in that area is worth it for me. I'm also tracking things on my iPad and Lightning Finder is a great app to keep realtime track of cloud to ground lightning strikes. I was watching what was happening in the field and that helped me make decision.

I had heard about Tropical Storm Lee down in the Gulf but I didn't pay it too much attention since it was hitting Texas and Louisiana, way too far away for me on Saturday, September 2. Well, Lee had other plans. looking at radar on Sunday night I began to see a huge swath of rain heading north and east into the Mid-Atlantic and New England like a freight train that wasn't stopping. I knew the ground was already super-saturated so flash floods popped into my head.

Seventh Lesson Learned - you've got communication out, how's your communication in? As I said, all our groups carry sat or cell phones and we have a time to have your phone on. Part of this is to be able to communicate to our groups in a natural or national emergency or if there is some family emergency for one of the students (which we've had like a death in the family). I also have implemented a database system for automatically sending text messages out to all those phones. [It combines a database of all the phone numbers in Microsoft Access, along with some easy database programming and a third party software program called Total Access Emailer which does email merges from an Access Database.] This whole thing can be sent up to send out text messages which is what I did on Sunday night. I texted that there was significant rain coming and that people needed to be aware of potential flooding and check their weather radios for local details (all the groups carry a NOAA Weather Radio). One problem, that text went out on Sunday night, but phones didn't go on until noon on Monday. So from here on in our groups will turn on their phones first thing in the morning as well as noon and six to see if there is a text. By the way, lots of times a text message will go through when a voice call won't so having text message capability IN and OUT is key.

Here's what I was looking at on the radar. Scary looking isn't it. The first image is the storm track. The second shows the rainfall totals. It rained so much they had to restart the color shading at green.

Rain started slowly on Monday and was forecast to come down 4-6 inches a day for 3 days. On Monday the flash flood watches and warning started popping up for Tuesday. I looked at the pattern and made a big decision, bring people out. At first that started with Pennsylvania and Maryland tow areas right in the "eye" of Lee, then I expanded it to include Virginia and then Connecticut and Massachusetts as the storm move north and east. I sent a text telling groups that we were going to pick them up and relocate them, basically a precautionary evac. Eighth Lesson Learned - have an Evac Location for each day of the trip. If you have to pull everyone out of an area, it's a huge transportation issue. You want to have a spot on each days trip route where you know you can easily pick people up. If conditions are not dangerous, it's better for people to hike/paddle/bike whatever to those locations rather than have them pop out randomly on the trail someplace. Keep in mind that the leaders are the one experiencing the actual field conditions so they need to make the decision about whether your planned Evac point is viable, or will they have to cross three flood-swollen creeks to get there. I had Evac locations for all of our longstanding trips, but not for many of the ones we just replanned, so we did it on the fly for those areas.

Ninth Lesson Learned - Have an intermediate 'Rallying Point' I've known this one for a long time so it wasn't as much a new lesson for me, more of an 'I told you so.' For the areas that we've been using regularly for the past ten years we have identified in each region a relocation/evacuation rallying point--a state park with camping, an outdoor education center with cabins, etc. Someplace where we could move groups as an intermediate site in case of a major weather event. I had these lined up for our longstanding routes, but didn't get those worked out for the 40 replacement routes. Why is this important? You'll see. Many of the places that our trips go are 5 or more hours from New Jersey. Something I've known for years is that bus drivers are limited by Department of Transportation regulations from driving more than 10 straight hours. So a number of our bus driver who dropped groups off on Sunday, had to stay in a motel Sunday night since they couldn't drive back the same day. Well, that also meant that in order to pick up all our waterlogged groups they could not drive from New Jersey, pick the groups up and get back to New Jersey on the same day. That meant we had to relocate 1,000 people to an intermediate site and then bring them back the next day. That's the reason for knowing where these "rally points" are ahead of time. For example, in Shenandoah National Park, we moved everyone to Big Meadows Campground in the park. So do the research and have these locations tagged ahead of time. Talk to the camps, state parks, rangers, etc. and ask them if the could handle 50 people or however many in an emergency evac. Then you just have to activate this emergency relocation plan.

So we got our people out to their intermediate sites. It was a challenge because I had 22 buses reserved for Friday, the day the trips were supposed to return and suddenly I called our bus company and asked for 22 buses on Wednesday. Tenth Lesson Learned - have a great relationship with your transportation provider - build it ahead of time. We have a really good relationship with our bus company Coach USA. Because they are in the business of keeping their buses on the road, they didn't have 22 buses and drivers. Just 9 they could give us with 24 hours notice (remember the 10 hour driver rule?). So I took the nine buses and worked out a way to have them drive out, pick up all the groups and ferry them to the closest state park, motel, etc. and then go back and get another load and got it all done in under the 10-hour driver limit. Being able to talk directly to Zarco the bus dispatcher was key.

Eleventh Lesson Learned - have good transportation software. There are lots of products out there - online like Google Maps or software products like Microsoft Streets and Trips (which I use). None are perfect, especially when you are dealing with buses since consumer software ignores things like bridge weights and overpass heights, but they are better than nothing. Since I already had all my original bus drop-off points saved out in Microsoft Streets it was a fairly quick job to run directions for the drivers to go from Evac pickup locations 1, 2 and 3 to the motel and then back to locations 4, 5 and 6. It saved me hours of time trying to communicate with the bus dispatcher when I could just email him a PDF of the bus pickups. There are software products built for commercial trucking fleets that do know things like bridges and overpasses and route trucks (and buses) around them. Next year I'll sign up for a 30 day free trial of PC*Miler|Web and see how that works for bus directions.

So we got over 1,000 people relocated to intermediate motels and campsites (no don't ask me about how much this all cost). We got a second wave of buses out to join the 9 buses and we got everyone back to campus, dry and happy on Wednesday and Thursday. I have so many people to thanks for pulling this off and getting everyone back safety. The tremendous student leaders who used great judgment to keep things under control. Our Support Teams in the field who did an epic job of picking up groups and getting them to buses. To the superb Command Center Team who stayed on the phones for 16+ hours a day working all the pickups. To all the administrators and staff at Princeton who figured out how to feed people when then got back to campus and came up with fun activities for our groups to do so they could continue to function in their small groups until the scheduled end of the program. Twelfth Lesson Learned - develop your campus network ahead of time. So when BIG things happen you have the relationships built to get the help you need. Thirty years of being at Princeton means that I have a great set of colleagues who I could call on and they all came to my aid. Thirteenth Lesson Learned - what is your campus emergency response plan and how does your trip fit into that? Like many campuses Princeton has an Emergency Response Team (ERT) to deal with some major campus calamity, a dorm fire, school shooting etc. Know what that plan is and talk to those people to know when, if your program is dealing with a major event, that event hits the threshold to initiate the college's ERT. They can get things done that you can't simply by virtue of their being activated and having mega resources at their disposal. Last Lesson Learned - have a great staff team - Leaders, Command Center and Support. It makes all the difference.

I don't want to make it sound like these trips were terrible. On the contrary, while my week was terrible, the students bonding incredibly well. They had enough challenges to bring them together, not so much that it broke them apart. Making the decision to start to pull the trips out, knowing that it could not be all done in 24 hours, meant that we did get them out before conditions got really bad. Like I said the leaders did a great job and when I saw all the students in the main campus auditorium on Thursday night they were totally pumped about their experience. As I've said, it was the best possible outcome from a bad situation. We successfully achieved the goals of our outdoor orientation program.

And I finally got some sleep. Here are my Lessons Learned. Pop yours in the Comments Section or contact me about submitting a Blog entry.

First Lesson Learned--it's not just the big weather event like the hurricane, it's also the rest of the weather context.
Second Lesson Learned - mega-weather events bring up new safety risks.
Third Lesson Learned - the National 511 System.
Fourth Lesson Learned - after a major weather event or national disaster, local officials have to allocate their resources sparingly.
Fifth Lesson Learned - have more trips in your back pocket than you need.
Sixth Lesson Learned - have good weather software
Seventh Lesson Learned - you've got communication out, how's your communication in?
Eighth Lesson Learned - have an Evac Location for each day of the trip.
Ninth Lesson Learned - have an intermediate 'Rallying Point'
Tenth Lesson Learned - have a great relationship with your transportation provider - build it ahead of time.
Eleventh Lesson Learned - have good transportation software.
Twelfth Lesson Learned - develop your campus network ahead of time.
Thirteenth Lesson Learned - what is your campus emergency response plan and how does your trip fit into that?
Final Lesson Learned - have a great staff team - Leaders, Command Center and Support

Tragedy in the Tetons

2011-07-24T18:08:00Z

On July 18, 2011 tragedy struck in the Tetons. A 16-year old participant on an outdoor education program sponsored backpacking trip was killed by a falling tree. According to the Chicago Sun-Times:

"The Teton County Sheriff’s Office received a satellite telephone call at 2:45 p.m. July 18 from Wilderness Ventures, a commercial backpacking company in Jackson Hole, Wyo., that Burns was struck by a falling tree and severely injured. Burns was approximately 66 feet away from the base of the tree helping to set up camp, when other group members attempted to hang food in a “bear bag” in the dead 75-foot tree. Burns, who was kneeling down tending to camp equipment when she was struck, never regained consciousness, witnesses said."

This is the official press release from the Teton County Sheriff's Office:

"On Monday July 18, 2011 at 2:45 PM, The Teton County Sheriff's Office Dispatch center received a call on a satellite telephone from a commercial backpacking company stating that a girl in their group had been struck by a falling tree and was severely injured.

While setting up camp approximately four (4) miles due east of the Turpin Meadow trailhead in the Teton Wilderness, a sixteen-year-old female member of a backpacking group was struck by a falling tree when the tree uprooted as group members were attempting to hang food in a "bear bag" in the tree. The girl, Elizabeth Burns of Lake Forest, Illinois, was tending to camp chores when the approximately 75 foot dead tree struck her. She was approximately 66 feet from the base of the tree. The tree was approximately 24" in diameter at the base and 9" in diameter where it hit her. She was kneeling down tending to camp equipment when she was struck.

A helicopter from the Teton Interagency group was flown to the site with Grand Teton Park Search and Rescue members aboard to render aid. According to people at the scene, she never regained consciousness after being struck. The girl was pronounced dead at the scene at 1635 hours. She suffered numerous injuries but the suspected cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.

The remaining members of the backcountry camping group hiked out with the assistance of the park rangers to the Togwotee Mountain Lodge where they were met by crisis counselors from Grand Teton National Park. The Togwotee Mountain Lodge provided lodging for the rest of the group for the night."

Our condolences go out to the family and fiends of the victim and to all those involved in the program.

This incident is sadly reminiscent of a tree branch death in Australia that took place on a high school camping trip run by an outdoor education program in Victoria in August 2005.

These incidents are a stark reminder of some of the 'less visible' hazards in the outdoors.I experienced this some years ago on a backpacking trip through our program when a group hung a bear bag on a branch late at night. In the dark it wasn't clear to the group that the branch was dead. As the bear bag was hauled up the branch broke hitting one of the participants in the head resulting in a scalp laceration. To compound the incident the dead branch contained a bees nest and when the branch hit the ground and broke open a hive of angry bees emerged and several participants got stung. Luckily there were no serious injuries from this. Analysis of the incident led us to implement new bear bagging protocols.

Dead branches or dead trees can be the result of blights or infections such as the Mountain Pine Beetle which has killed huge stands of trees in the American West. I urge everyone to be vigilant in assessing this hazard. Here are a few important resources to help you assess these hazards for your program.

How to Recognize Hazardous Defects in Trees (PDF) - Pamphlet by the U.S. Forest Service
Preventing death and serious injury from falling trees and branches (PDF) by Andrew Brookes, Australian Journal of Outdoor Education, 11(2), 50-59, 2007
Protocols for Assessing Tree Safety (PDF) by Andrew Brookes, Australian Journal of Outdoor Education, 11(2), 50-59, 2007

Andrew Brookes, a professor at the School of Outdoor Education and Environment,La Trobe University, Bendigo, Australia in identifies the following factors to consider when assessing the hazards associated with trees:

Assessing trees:

Tree health
- Is the tree alive or dead?
- Are there dead branches or other visible signs of ill-health – dead leaves or twigs at the end of branches?
- Are there visible signs of rot or fungal attack on the trunk?
- Are there dead or sagging branches?
- Are there signs of ageing?
- Are there signs of coppicing or epicormic regrowth? (Branches that have grown following damage or stress might
  be more weakly attached than branches that form part of a tree's original structure)
Tree structure
- Is the tree balanced or leaning? Is any lean due to damage?
- Assess the size and relative weight.
- Are there structural weaknesses such as co-dominant forks with included bark2?
- Are there visible signs of damage to roots, trunk, or branches, such as wounds, cracks, or bulges?
  Does any damage observed compromise structure (for example root damage on one side, or loss of branches on one side)?
- Has the soil been softened by rain?
- Is the soil cracked or bulging?
- Are there any loose branches suspended in the canopy?
Assessing location
- What areas are at risk from falling branches?
- What areas are at risk from the whole tree falling? (Distance estimation)
- Is the tree particularly susceptible to wind loading from any particular direction?
- Does the tree have a large "sail" area (wind load)?
- Have tracks, clearing, or other works changed the way the tree has grown, or altered wind loads?
Weather
- What is the forecast
  - Rain softening the ground
  - Snow or ice loading
  - Wind loading
  - Rain loadings on canopy
  - Wind direction
- What previous weather events might have affected trees
  - Long dry spells
  - Sodden ground

WA Court Rules that Seller not Manufacturer Liable for Defective Bike Part

2011-02-28T04:03:00Z

The Washington State Court of Appeals issued a ruling on a product liability case, Monika Johnson vs Recreational Equipment Incorporated. This case is an interesting one to follow because it opens up the question of product liability to who sells the product not just who manufactures the product. A more detailed review of the state of product liability for equipment and "seller versus manufacturer" can be found in the Adventure & Recreation Law Center legal case—Are you offering a Product or a Service? It Makes a BIG Difference.

The Johnson vs Recreational Equipment Incorporated case is interesting particularly in light of the practice of large outdoor retailers selling products manufactured by other companies under their own 'store brand.'

The Court of Appeals ruling was released on February 7, 2011. In a completely unrelated and tragic end to this story, Monika Johnson, who brought the suit, died in an avalanche in Snoqualmie Pass, Washington on February 1.

The following are excerpts from the court's decision. The full decision of the Court of Appeals is available online. Other court documents relating to the case can be found at Washington Courts (search for 65463 as the document number).

In November 2007, Monika Johnson was riding her bicycle along a downtown Seattle sidewalk when the front carbon fiber fork of the bicycle, which attaches the bicycle's front wheel to its frame, "sheared from the steer tube suddenly and without warning." Clerk's Papers (CP) at 57. The fork and front wheel detached from the frame of the bicycle, and Johnson fell face first onto the sidewalk, sustaining serious injuries.

Johnson brought an action against REI pursuant to the WPLA [Washington product liability act], alleging that her injuries were caused by a defect in the carbon fiber fork. Both the bicycle and the carbon fiber fork, although not manufactured by REI, were marketed under REI's brand name, Novara. Johnson had purchased the Novara brand bicycle from REI in 2002. In 2005, she had taken the bicycle to REI for repairs following a collision with a car door. The Novara carbon fiber fork that fractured in November 2007 was installed on the bicycle during those 2005 repairs.

Johnson did not name the manufacturer of the fork, Aprebic Industry Company, Ltd., as a defendant in the action. REI filed a motion for partial summary judgment, seeking a ruling that it was entitled to ask the jury to allocate fault to Aprebic pursuant to Washington's comparative fault system, set forth in chapter 4.22 RCW, or, in the alternative, requesting leave to file a third party complaint against Aprebic. In response, Johnson filed a motion for partial summary judgment, asserting that REI was strictly liable for her injuries.

[According to the WPLA Statute]

The limited circumstances in which a product seller assumes the liability of a manufacturer are set forth in RCW 7.70.040(2), which provides:
(2) A product seller, other than a manufacturer, shall have the liability of a manufacturer to the claimant if:

(a) No solvent manufacturer who would be liable to the claimant is subject to service of process under the laws of the claimant's domicile or the state of Washington; or
(b) The court determines that it is highly probable that the claimant would be unable to enforce a judgment against any manufacturer; or
(c) The product seller is a controlled subsidiary of a manufacturer, or the manufacturer is a controlled subsidiary of the product seller; or
(d) The product seller provided the plans or specifications for the manufacture or preparation of the product and such plans or specifications were a proximate cause of the defect in the product; or
(e) The product was marketed under a trade name or brand name of the product seller.

Thus, by imposing liability on sellers of branded products for manufacturing defects—which, inevitably, are caused by acts of the manufacturer—our legislature created a statutory form of vicarious liability that enables the claimant injured by a defectively manufactured product to recover fully from the product seller where the seller branded the product as its own.

Johnson submitted to the trial court evidence—in the form of [expert witness] declaration—that the fork fractured due to insufficient carbon fiber layering. This evidence itself supports the conclusion that the fork "deviated in some material way from the design specifications or performance standards of the manufacturer," RCW 7.72.030(2)(a), as no conceivable performance standard would call for the manufacture of a carbon fiber fork that fractures as Johnson's did.

Court Conclusions

The Washington product liability act (WPLA), chapter 7.72 RCW, sets forth a statutory form of vicarious liability whereby a product seller assumes the liability of a manufacturer where a product is marketed under the seller's brand name. Because permitting the product seller to attribute fault to the actual manufacturer would abrogate this provision of the WPLA, principles of comparative fault do not apply, notwithstanding the possibility that statutory contribution may thereby be precluded. Such a result is not in contravention of our state's statutory comparative fault system, as commercial entities can themselves contract to allocate liability where the WPLA's vicarious liability provision applies. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's ruling that Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI) is not entitled to seek to allocate fault to the manufacturer of the defective product that REI branded as its own. We also conclude that the trial court erred neither by finding REI strictly liable for the injuries caused by the defective product nor by ruling that any third party claim by REI against the manufacturer would be severed for trial.

Petzl issues warning regarding dangerous counterfeit versions of some products

2011-02-14T04:40:00Z

Petzl has just released a public announcement about the discovery of counterfeit versions of a number of their climbing and personal protective equipment products. These counterfeit products are originating in China where the counterfeiting of products is a huge industry. While it certainly is a problem when a a counterfeit product life a golf club is sold, it's unlikely that anyone will die from using a counterfeit 9 iron. However, in this case there is serious risk to anyone using counterfeit versions of these products. Petzl is stepping in to deal with this issue quickly. As of February 12, 2011 only a few counterfeits have been found on the market and no counterfeit products have been identified in North America. There is currently no information on what country or countries counterfeit products were discovered in.

This does raise a serious new risk management concern for the entire outdoor industry. Most counterfeit products from China have focused on large volume consumer or high-priced luxury items. The idea that items like professional climbing equipment are seen as a lucrative market for counterfeiters should be a great concern to all of us.

Below is information from the Petzl Web site about the products in question. Please see the Petzl Web Site for the latest information.

Petzl has recently discovered Chinese counterfeit versions of the following products:

These counterfeit products have serious defects that affect their performance and strength.
There is a significant risk that these counterfeit products could open or otherwise fail at low loads and under normal use:

These counterfeit products do not meet UIAA or CE safety standards.
These counterfeit products do not meet Petzl safety and quality requirements.
It will be very difficult for you to identify these fakes

What the Maine Ski Lift Accident can tell us about Risk Management

2011-01-03T06:22:00Z

The recent ski lift accident at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine raises some important questions in risk management for outdoor programs. The purpose of this post is not to armchair quarterback the staff at Sugarloaf, but rather to use it to build out some questions that each of us should be asking about our own programs.

On Tuesday, December 28, 2010 the cable on a chairlift derailed from one of the towers dropping a five chairs 25 to 30 feet into the snow. Eight people were taken to the hospital, thankfully none in serious condition. Dozens of other people were stranded on the lift for several hours as ski patrollers lowered them from the chairs to the ground. The lift is 4,013 feet long, gains 1,454 feet of elevation and nearly reaches the summit of 4,327-foot Sugarloaf.

High winds (gusts of 40 to 50 MPH were reported) are considered to be a causative factor in this accident. From a risk management perspective we have a number of different causal factors interacting that led to this accident.

High winds earlier in the morning had put this lift and several others on a 'wind hold' at 9:00 AM. The 'wind hold' was taken off and the lift started operating at 9:55 AM.
At 10:23 AM mechanical issues were reported on the lift tower with a cable which was out of alignment with the wheels on the top of the tower. Two maintenance operators were working on the cable just prior to the cable derailing. According to the Associated Press report "Adjustments were made, and the lift was stopped and started several times in attempt to realign the cable before the mechanics decided to shut down the lift altogether. They'd restarted the lift at a slow speed to allow skiers to disembark when the cable jumped out of wheels holding it in place."

While all of the causal factors have yet to be identified, state investigators indicated that high winds were factor, but they had not ruled out other causes. It's yet not clear if the the wind or another cause initially pushed the cable out of place which the maintenance operators were attempting to fix.

One positive factor in the incident is that over twenty inches of fresh powder snow was present under the lift from Sunday's major snowstorm in the east. It's possible that injuries could have been more severe had the landing been onto harder snow.

This incident raises some interesting questions that all of us need to consider in terms of program and risk management. One is issue of evaluating environmental factors and determining when an activity is "go or no go." The ever-changing nature of environmental conditions often makes it difficult to make these decisions. Conditions could be fine at time X and then hazardous at time Y. For those of you who read the Blog posts about the Mangatepopo River Tragedy in New Zealand, in that incident we saw that assessing environmental conditions and making the "go or no go" call was a critical factor in that incident.

In the Maine situation we also see a very complex interaction between environmental conditions and mechnical equipment. In the end the proximal cause was a mechanical failure at the lift tower. Understanding the necessary equipment maintenance cycles and documentation of your maintenance is another lesson to take from this incident. For more information on how your program can be impacted by equipment faliture I recommend the Adventure & Recreation Law Center article on Product Liability-Who's to Blame?

The fact that the maintenance operators felt the problem was significant enough to shut the lift down 'once skiers were off the lift' raises another decision-point question: when do you keep operating your program when conditions are marginal or even sub-marginal, or when do you stop the activity?

I don't want to second-guess the maintenance operators. Obviously it is a difficult call to make to close a lift filled with people and have to evacuate every chair by lowering people to the ground. In order to make the decision you need to think holistically about all sorts of factors: how long people will be in exposed weather on the lift, how many staff are available for just this type of rescue and how pulling all those staff away from other parts of the mountain will reduce your ability to effectively respond to injuries and issues elsewhere. Again, I think there are lessons to be learned here about thinking through the various possible outcomes and trying to work out what options seem to have the least risk.

What other questions do you see arising out of this incident?

Understanding the Risk Gap in outdoor adventure programming

2010-11-29T04:36:00Z

The Risk Gap is a concept that I've employed for many years as one of my strategies for managing risk while running a college outdoor program. I've just posted a video explaining the Risk Gap concept along with a PowerPoint file that you can download for using in your own program as a risk management tool and as a staff training tool. I hope you find it helpful.

Climber 9-1-1

2010-11-22T04:15:00Z

The question of whether mountain climbers should be required to carry mobile communications devices has been a point of debate (and even legislation) since the high profile incident on Mt. Hood in Oregon that resulted in the deaths of three climbers and other tragic mountaineering accidents. Often the push for mobile communication devices comes hand-in-hand with the question of charging climbers for rescues. In an excellent article in the Northwest Mountaineering Journal, Rad Roberts explores the details of this highly debated topic and presents the Search and Rescue perspective.

Here are some of the key questions that Rad addresses.

Do mobile communication devices improve outcomes for mountain search and rescue?
What is the best mobile communication device for Northwest mountain climbers?
Will climbers take greater risks when they think they can easily call in a rescue?
What equipment is most likely to improve climber safety?
Would there be unintended consequences of requiring climbers to carry a signaling device?

Read the Article

New Safety Protocols Developed by Outdoor Pursuits Centre

2010-09-21T13:18:00Z

OPC Issues Report on Managatepopo Tragedy

As a follow-up on my previous posting about the New Zealand Canyoning incident in April 2008, the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre (OPC) has released a report that contains all the recommendations from the independent review into the Managatepopo tragedy which was instigated by the OPC Trust Board of the tragedy. OPC has posted a summary of the report on it's Web site or you can download a PDF of the summary from the link at the bottom of the page. If you would like to see a full copy of this extensive report please email OPC, safety@opc.org.nz, with your postal address and they will send you a copy. You can also direct any questions you may have to this email address.

OPC Institutes Broad Safety Management Protocols

As a result of the extensive review of this incident by OPC, the NZ Department of Labour, and the Coroner's Office, OPC has implemented broad changes to its risk and safety management systems. Below is information from their new Safety Web site that details the changes they have introduced. As I said in my earlier post, this is an accident that we can all learn from, and OPC's sharing of its new Safety System is a valuable contribution to risk management throughout the outdoor industry. Please take some time to review their materials and consider how it might influence your models and practices.

Rick

The diagram below summarises the major elements of our safety management system. You can view a few sample documents by clicking on the bold text. This is a new system and OPC staff are being inducted and trained in its use step by step.

Tier 1: The Fundamental Principles of Safety Management is the best place to start as this is the core of the entire system. These core principals are expanded upon through our Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and during staff training.

Tier 2: Activity Handbooks go right through the organisation. The instructor handbook contains details of hazards, management strategies and SOPs and guidelines for different activity types. These cover the generic hazards to that activity type.

Tier 3: Activity Management Plans, are used in conjunction with the previous two tiers. They contains site specific hazards and procedures which may be additional to, or different to those found in the Activity Handbook. As the system is being developed OPC continues to use RAMS forms as Activity Management Plans in some places.

The supporting documentation for the sample Tier 3 form includes:

- FLASH (Factors Likely to Accentuate Serious Harm) system

- Activity Management Plan for 'Fooled Cave' (the primary document)

- FLASH Analysis for 'Fooled Cave'

- Explanation for the Instructor Level

- Previous Incidents (not attached)

- OPC Crisis Managament System and specific crisis plan for 'Fooled Cave' (not attached)

- Cave Resources: teaching ideas, specific activity instructions and background information for instructors (not attached)

The Competency Overview shows the skills required by staff in various activity areas.

Please contact safety@opc.org.nz if you have any questions about how the system works or would like to see more of our Activity Management Plans.

New Zealand Coroner's Report has Lessons for all of us

2010-07-19T00:47:00Z

The New Zealand Mountain Safety Council (MSC) has issued a press release regarding the New Zealand Coroner's Report on the deaths of six high school students and a teacher on April 15, 2008 in a canyoning accident on a program run by the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre (OPC). I blogged about the original incident back in April 2008. Having been to OPC and knowing some of the staff I understand how devastating death on a program can be.

In the two years since the tragedy the families have struggled to understand what happened as has the lone instructor who was leading the trip. No criminal charges were filed, but OPC was charged under the Health and Safety in Employment Act that included:

The Centre's obligation to ensure the safety of other people in the place of work.
The Centre's obligation to ensure that its employees' actions didn't expose others to avoidable risks.
The Centre's obligation to protect the instructor who went into the gorge with the school party.

In March 2009 OPC was fined $40,000 and ordered to make $440,000 in reparations to the families of those involved in the accident under the Health and Safety in Employment Act. Since the accident a number of administrative staff working at the Centre have resigned, many of them understandably coping with the tragedy.

The Coroner's Report is a factual and often chilling account of what transpired. It paints a detailed picture of an accident taking place, a series of events that cascaded into tragedy and points out weaknesses within operating and program structures that are not unique to OPC. The Coroner's Report is something that every outdoor program should read. The thirty-nine page report describes in detail the incident itself and the other events and structures at OPC. Numerous contributing factors were identified by the Coroner:

Risk Analysis
Required Assessments of weather impact on activity
Instructor qualifications for a Gorge trip
Historical knowledge of past flooding events
Swimming ability and connecting swimmers
Escape routes and refuges
Radio reception
Rescue plan
Throwbagging
Staff to student ratio
Monitoring the environment
Non compliance with policies
Audit/Accreditation
Independent Review

In his summary the Coroner is quite clear on the major factors that lead to this accident:

"Regrettably, lack of environmental awareness, lack of instructional use of historical information, instructor inexperience, lack of proper assessment before the gorge was entered to ensure there was no significant chance of water levels rising above a safe level during the trip, lack of or inadequate communication when in the gorge between the instructor and the Field Manager or OPC base staff, failure to implement a crisis plan and dispatch response teams in a timely manner, under-estimation of risks, and complacency contributed to the tragic deaths of six students and one teacher."

This was a tragedy for all of New Zealand and for outdoor programs around the world. I post this blog in part to respond to the call from the MSC for people to learn from the tragedy. Like other significant tragedies in outdoor education that have been extensively written about (ex. Lessons Learned by Deb Ajango), the Coroner's Report is a reminder, and a wake-up call for all outdoor programs. I strongly encourage all of you to read the report in detail, share it with your staff, and carefully review the contributing factors in this incident. I think every program will find at least one familiar thread that applies to your operation. I know I did.

'There, but for the grace of God, go all of us.'

Download the Coroner's Report

The Real Risk of Meds in the Woods

2009-11-19T03:28:00Z

Many of us have weighed in on the “Meds in the Woods” issue with the competing moral and legal issues keeping the industry from making a uniform statement as to the best practice. With Good Samaritan and epinephrine laws varying from state to state, the discussion becomes even more complicated. At the Wilderness Risk Management Conference recently, people were very passionate about what medications could be acquired, possessed and administered in remote areas during an emergency. Some stated that because the risk of harm is low and the risk of death is high (such as in the case of epinephrine) having the meds is worth the cost if it means saving a life, the moral argument. Others wanted to place the entire burden of medical care squarely on the participant, the inherent risk argument. In certain circumstances, both positions expose organizations and their staff to potential liability.

I suggested to several people at the conference that while organizations may worry this issue will arise when a participant is injured and treated (or not treated), the more likely scenario will have nothing to do with a participant. Instead, a physician or pharmacist will be investigated as part of a civil, criminal or administrative proceeding, and the professional’s prescription drug records will be reviewed. A physician or pharmacist who has prescribed or filled meds to an organization and not an individual patient, for example, will then be investigated and possibly charged. If those meds crossed state lines, Federal agencies will be contacted prompting additional investigations, and soon. They will all follow the chain as far as it goes – directly to the organizations and staff that have the meds in their backpacks or first aid kits. While courts have not yet addressed a “Meds in the Woods” case, they have held physicians, pharmacists and others liable for the misuse, mislabeling, etc. of prescription drugs stemming from an independent investigation. I have seen it in my own practice, and I believe that as agencies become more aggressive and technologies become more sophisticated, it will continue.

In a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal, there was a front-page story about the states’ prescription tracking programs and how they are being used in civil and criminal proceedings against physicians and pharmacists.

Here's the link:

http://www.careerjournal.com/article/SB125668736789811845.html

There is a graphic showing the states that use tracking programs. Ironically, one of the states that doesn't have a tracking program, Missouri, has a very aggressive Board of Pharmacy, in which, one of my former clients spent almost 10 years inlitigation stemming from a physician’s unlawful prescribing of a common prescription pain medicine. The board simply followed the chain. Because of the recordkeeping required by state and Federal laws, finding out where a single drug has travelled is not much more difficult than locating a book ordered from Amazon. The tracking programs discussed in the Journal story show how easy it is for states to conduct broader searches of physicians, pharmacies, patients and pharmaceuticals. While privacy protections imposed by the law still exist to protect against investigative mining of data, once an investigation begins, it will be difficult for agencies to decide whose privacy is entitled to protection, especially if it appears that people down the chain are not acting in a lawful manner.

The Meds in the Woods issue is serious, but not only because of the moral issues the industry faces every time it takes people into remote areas. It is important, because despite an organization's best intentions, it may find itself and its staff with legal issues brought about by physicians, pharmacists and others who had little to do with the program. These are very real risks that, as legal professionals and risk managers working toward a best practice, we should continue to thoughtfully consider and discuss.

-- Paula Colman, Attorney at Law

David Breashears' Storm Over Everest - a Risk Management Case Study

2008-05-19T02:19:00Z

If you missed the spectacular Frontline documentary on PBS by David Breashears on the 1996 Everest tragedy you can watch the full two hour episode online at Frontline. There are also interviews with expedition members and interactive maps of the mountain and the accident. The documentary is a fantastic case study in risk management, judgment and decision making and is highly recommended as a staff training tool.