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Coroners reports

Reluctant

17-Jul-2015
12:28:33 PM

Would you support the posting on chockstone of coroners court summarys of climbing related deaths?

mikllaw

17-Jul-2015
12:43:20 PM

Yes, do all coroner's report get made public, or only those which recommend police action.
Most accident data disappears.

martym

17-Jul-2015
12:53:14 PM

I would like to know what happened at BBB.
I've read most of the media and Simon's blog detailing the bolt removal and the issue with Boris Cujic.

But the elephant in the room for me is that it was gear failure: the rope broke. That's terrifying. Did this come up in the inquest?

jkane

17-Jul-2015
12:56:14 PM

I think they should be publicly available somewhere. So saying yes to chockstone if not somewhere more suitable. Preferably no names or other identifying information of those involved.

ldshield

17-Jul-2015
1:35:40 PM

On 17/07/2015 Cliff wrote:
>Since 2009, all inquest findings with recommendations are published on
>the Victorian Coroners website.
>
>My take is that its very personal and private info; and should be handled
>sensitively... which is variable and difficult to control on CS. It must
>be awful/traumatic for friends and families to see the details and posters'
>comments on the web. Given that the info is already publicly available
>on the Coroners website, what good would it do to cut and paste this info
>on CS; and would any good far outweigh the negatives? All the ways to have
>a tragedy climbing are well known.
>
>Check your knot.

I think a locked thread containing links to relevant reports on the Coroner's site would be most appropriate.

patto

17-Jul-2015
2:55:31 PM

Accident reports of ALL kinds can provide an invaluable learning tool for climber and in other adventure activities. The majority of accidents don't end it in death so any focus only on coroner reports is missing out on 90% of the available information.

A thread with links to previous reports would be quite invaluable. (No discussion in the main thread.) A website database would be even better but we can't have everything. When it comes to canyoning I very often point people to this accident report. It highlight how easily shit can hit the fan and deaths can occur.
http://ozultimate.com/canyoning/carra_beanga.htm

patto

17-Jul-2015
3:07:00 PM

On 17/07/2015 Cliff wrote:
>All the ways to have a tragedy climbing are well known.
All? Hardly. In fact even some of the ones that should be well known are not to most climbers.

There are many climbers out there who don't keep themselves well informed. Sometimes this is due to the difficulty accessing information. (No common database.)

There are also some fairly unique accidents that arise from chains of events where the risks of the actions are not immediately obvious. Discussions and knowledge of these are can be quite invaluable.

Regarding names and personal information I completely agree that it should be handled sensitively. In coroner reports that is unavoidable due to their public nature. In accident reports I agree that such information is totally unnecessary for chockstone. Ideally they should be made available with such information removed.

ldshield

17-Jul-2015
4:51:26 PM

On 17/07/2015 Cliff wrote:
>On 17/07/2015 patto wrote:
>>All? Hardly.
>
>You can't protect yourself from all hazards; and I don't think that it
>would be a good thing if you could. Its an adventure after all.
>
>My main concern is the lack of sensitivity in how this info would be handled;
>and the potential to add to the trauma of others closely connected to the
>person(s) affected. As well, there doesn't seem to be a convincing argument
>for reposting the info here, as its readily available on the Coroner's
>website.

Coincidentally the British Mountaineering Council are running just such a project (which won't help us, unfortunately; it's just for their magazine) : https://www.thebmc.co.uk/learning-lessons-from-accidents

IdratherbeclimbingM9

17-Jul-2015
10:43:11 PM

On 17/07/2015 Cliff wrote:
>On 17/07/2015 ldshield wrote:
>>Coincidentally the British Mountaineering Council are running just such
>a project
>
>Soliciting stories from climbers who survived is not at all like posting
>a Coroner's report of someone else's tragedy on CS.
>
>First contribution from the BMC's page... (SNIPS) "I was leading ...I
>got to near the top without placing any gear. I fell the full length...
>broke my ..., wasn't wearing a helmet.... now always wear a helmet and
>put gear in!"
>
>Priceless
>
>EDIT
>
>I do think there's a role in some cases for backward looking, I just think
>that it would be nearly impossible to communicate Coroner's reports and
>responses sensitively on CS; and only some accidents are going to add to
>what's already known.

You mentioned earlier that "all inquest findings with recommendations are published on the Victorian Coroners website", ... however I don't think (not absolutely certain), that this is the case for NSW, ... and I have no idea about what other States do in that regard.

I agree with you that for general postings on Chockstone that it can be an insensitive site and it is not appropriate for tragic event details to be published on it; however I think that Chockstone would benefit from a section* (as someone mentioned earlier), where Coroners Court summarys could be held (or links to them), for benefit of the climbing community to learn from climbing related deaths.
(*This could be a moderated Section that allows the links but not discussion, as that would be more appropriate elsewhere).

I remember reading not long ago (on this site), of a link to a NZ Coronial request to NZ Mountaineering Club/s to specifically post up it's Findings in relation to an incident over there resulting in deaths, for the wider NZ climbing community to learn from.

I also agree with posts above indicating that non-death accidents and near-misses are far more prolific in number, and are equally important to learn from, though these are not covered by Coronial Inquests.

ajfclark

18-Jul-2015
8:28:22 AM

On 17/07/2015 martym wrote:
>But the elephant in the room for me is that it was gear failure: the rope
>broke. That's terrifying. Did this come up in the inquest?

I thought it was cut by an ironstone band?

martym

18-Jul-2015
8:40:04 AM

On 18/07/2015 ajfclark wrote:
>On 17/07/2015 martym wrote:
>>But the elephant in the room for me is that it was gear failure: the
>rope
>>broke. That's terrifying. Did this come up in the inquest?
>
>I thought it was cut by an ironstone band?

Yeah I read that in the early reports - though I think the only thing they could find was some cracked rock. A full report would shed light on it.
Since the rope wouldn't have been overly taut - that's scary in and of itself, no?

ajfclark

18-Jul-2015
9:37:23 AM

The rope wouldn't have gone taught during a factor 2 fall?

rodw

18-Jul-2015
9:56:25 AM

It simply hit a sharp edge when in tension and cut, it was very unlucky but something that can happen..Rope is not indestructible.

Richard Delaney

19-Jul-2015
8:13:24 PM

Lucas and I set up and ran the Australian Accident Register to do this years ago. We gave it a good shot for a while and had some very interesting info there. It just got harder and harder to get in touch with those who were really there and get accurate info... and our lives got busy.

The other major hurdle, having been involved in quite a few investigations, is that non fatal accidents rarely have detailed investigations. The only ones that do are generally about compensation and these cases rarely make it to a finding as there is a settlement and signed statements of confidentiality.

Richard Delaney

19-Jul-2015
9:02:17 PM

The old stuff is still there if you haven't seen it before.

https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!forum/australian-accident-register

capt_planit

20-Jul-2015
12:13:48 PM

Yes indeed. Accidents and near-misses are very good tools for the evolving climber. I've altered style and practice based on such reports (e.g. no more improvised chest harnesses).

There are 16 messages in this topic.