When family adventure and fun turned into a family tragedy
What happened?
A forty-nine year-old man was coasteering with a group which included his two teenage sons. The session was run by a company that had been coasteering for the previous nine years, and was licensed by the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority (AALA).
The group of nine participants had received a ‘risk acknowledgement’ briefing before the session started, and had been assigned to a coasteering instructor, who had been qualified for three years and was considered to be experienced.
The instructor ‘dynamically risk assessed’ each member of the group by asking them to jump into the water, then swim ten metres.
When the session started, it became apparent quite quickly that the man was falling behind the group. The instructor swam with him, talking to him and encouraging him, and towed him to a ledge, but it was a rocky shoreline and he was not able to fully climb out of the sea and on to one of the ledges.
The instructor climbed on to a ledge and threw a throw-line on more than one occasion but the man was not able to grab it. A large wave then swept the man back into the sea.
The instructor dived back in to recover him and began CPR, but the man never regained consciousness.
Legal Outcome
The inquest jury decided the man died as a result of misadventure.
What can we learn from what happened?
Coasteering is a young activity, and while it is covered by the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority, it doesn’t have its own NGB (National Governing Body) in the way that, say yachting would have through the RYA. The activity does, however, have the National Coasteering Charter (NCC), a voluntary association of representatives from different coasteering regions around the UK involving over 130 coasteering providers nationwide and recognised by the AALA, the RNLI and ROSPA.
From the information available, the session in question was run in accordance with NCC standards, and the staff involved were competent.
But coasteering, by its very nature is an activity at the mercy of nature, and any activity that includes exposure to the sea will bring with it risks that on the one hand increase the temptation to try it and the joy of doing it, but on the other hand can make it dangerous. The man who died, was not, by all accounts, a strong swimmer, but he was fit and healthy, was supervised, and was wearing buoyancy aids and a helmet. It was, however, determined by the instructor that he was not strong enough and he took the necessary action, but then the sea took over and a life was tragically lost.
Source of Information
BBC Online
Daily Mail Online