I am contacting you with some extremely sad news which I know will be felt profoundly by our entire DofE community.
Yesterday evening, a young person drowned while on a DofE expedition in Powys, Wales. Our thoughts are with the young person’s family, together with all those who were taking part. We will do everything we can to support them at this unimaginably difficult time.
The DofE is liaising closely with the Licensed Organisation and relevant authorities to understand how this tragic incident happened. We are offering our full support and, once the facts are clear, will consider what lessons can be learned for expedition safety and the guidance we issue to Licensed Organisations.
In the meantime, we are conscious that this remains peak expedition season so would advise anyone planning activity with young people to be mindful of the serious risks associated with water, especially with further hot weather forecast. Please make sure your risk assessments and safety arrangements take account of all aspects of an expedition, including any free time, as well as the conditions and other circumstances relevant to the area the activity is taking place in.
Our Expedition Guide has extensive information on safety, including emergency procedures. You can also find useful guidance in relation to water safety from the Royal Life Saving Society UK (RLSS) and the RNLI.
If you have any questions or require further information, please contact us.
Thank you for your support and understanding.
Best wishes,
John Egan
Chief Operating Officer | The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award
There’s also this:
Absolutely devastating news.
This is obviously incredibly rare and unlikely, but a stark reminder that what we do can have severe consequences.
I remember on my LLA and ESTC being told water is the second biggest risk we need to watch our for, second only to roads/traffic, yet is often overlooked.
But, given how late in the day this incident occurred, this was either after their exped, or ‘at the campsite’ in the evening.
For my Gold we were unsupervised over night every night, which was fine. One night we wild camped next to a lake. (The one below Pen-y-Fan) We asked if we could swim and were told no, but with a wink wink nudge nudgewe’re going now and won’t be back until the morning so how would we know kind of attitude. So of course we did as they basically said yes.
Which is as it should be, not much of a Gold Expedition if you are being chaperoned everywhere.
Whereas the correct thing is a firm “no” with an expectation it will be ignored.
Whenever I have groups out wild camping I will wild camp too with some of the staff, but my groups don’t know that, so if they call us we are close (and we are aware of what’s happening with the weather etc), but you still wouldn’t catch something like swimming in contravention of the risk assessment.
It’s a real tragedy for this young person and everyone involved.
Mixed thoughts seeing this post come up on my feed in the context of this thread. Kids obviously having a blast, which is great to see. But lots of what ifs coming you mind…
I’m going to assume their assessor didn’t know, hence them doing this. But if this has come from them, and there’s someone there to watch them, I don’t see it being too much of an issue. It’s a bit different from participants swimming in remote tarns in my opinion. But I doubt an assessor would agree to it.
I drove past the stretch of river a couple of weeks ago. It was full of people mainly younger children taking a dip and enjoying the river. It has always been a popular location for taking a dip and swimming. I personally have been kayaking and canoeing there in the past as a novice. It is a very placid stretch of river, not very deep and not fast flowing especially in times of low rainfall.
