I am as many readers of this blog are more than aware, an opinionated person, and I share those opinions with you. This can and does turn round and bite me back. My recent outburst on an incident that happened locally has done just that.
As of Friday, I was kicked off the Rescue Team, which is a shame. I had a short conversation with the team chairman, and I have to say that it did not strike me as either unfair or unexpected. As I have been warned about my writing on incidents, and despite not turning up on the job, using the pager message to alert me to the incident and looking into it through breaking news already online and the companies own website put the team in a very difficult position.
As such I think they have made the right decision, as they like many teams are in a strange position with new media, as many people blog, tweet, facebook or otherwise share their lives with social media. At the present time there is no official policy or protocol, other than guidance to say nothing.
However at times I find that ‘say nothing’ extremely hard indeed, as morally I found myself in a difficult position. As whilst I feel that information about for instance what caused accidents can be important and potentially live saving for others. In much the same way as my industry circulates information about near misses or accidents through either the BMG, AMI, UIAA, MLTA or the Heads of Centres groups. A prime example was when I shared the cause of how a climber became detached from their quickdraw. It is however hard to discern cause from blame in some cases, so the team quite rightly avoids walking through this grey area.
However in case where professional services are offered this becomes even more entreached with difficulties as there are possible police investigations. Anyone who has been on a ML and SPA training with me will no doubt have heard some of the lessons that have been learnt the hard way, some of which come from my time on the team, others from researching previous accidents from a variety of backgrounds. One incident stands out to me and I use it at work to illustrate the five lemons theory of incidents and accidents. At the time I hadn’t been in the team long so I did and said nothing. If I had I would have probably been kicked off the team earlier, but it still bugs that I did nothing.
So I am faced with my own moral voice (A very dangerous thing as who am I to judge?) versus one that only responds to rescues and remains tight lipped on probable cause or effect. Occasionally from the perspective of the rescue team the wrong voice wins and I hit the post button full in the knowledge that I am stepping into dangerous territory.
I know that this upsets some members of the team, but in my mind I am balancing personal beliefs on standards of instruction, safety and risk management that I see in my day to day work at a variety of centres versus what appears to be poor practice that results in tragedy. My ability to maintain a moral apolitical high ground that I am suppose to have as a team member, is sadly something I do not have, whether that is a strength or weakness depends very much on your perspective.
I’ll will miss many of the team, as I doubt we will run into each other in the circles we move in. It has been an honor to work alongside many of them, and I feel that at the very least I have put something back into climbing and mountaineering community that I love, and have certainly helped saved lives and reduce suffering during my time on the team, not to mention helped raise some money when I ran the marathon for team a couple of years back.
I will probably never be able to forget some of the worst rescues but similarly I will also never forget the stories with good outcomes. Most recently that of a climber who miraculously survived a terrible fall where I ended up along with another member of the team being first on scene, where between us we had little more than a first aid kit, a basic first aid knowldege, a radio and a bottle of oxygen, the advanced first aider was thankfully only moments behind us, but as climbers on scene were treating the bleeds we managed to get the casualty on oxygen and secure them and the rescuers to the precarious perch with little more than the gear and the rope she had on her. I like to think that along with everything else that went right for that climber that day, and all the others on the team who played their own much larger parts, that my own small contribution was one of the many pieces that made that miracle happen.
It is a shame that I will no longer have that potential role in someones life but I am who I am and I do what I do. If that is incompatible with the rescue team then its incompatible, at the very least I can say to myself I did what I could for as long as I could.
On the plus side more time for climbing for my own personal climbing, no more going out on the hill after I having spent the day on the hill and no more getting woken up in the middle of the night by a text message.