Side note: one of the additional control measures identified in the risk assessment was a unit helicopter to assist in searching for and recovering casualties. None had been arranged by the Training Officer or Warrant Officer
i can almost excuse the blanket blasé belief that JSP 539 was being followed as it was a copy&paste exercise - I am guilty of it too when referencing ACPs or ACTOs in the belief that I know their contents and knowledgeable in what is required can continue in my arrogance - however to suggest that this additional control measure was put in place (which would not be a simple phone call/email request) had not been done proves to me the paperwork was not taken seriously by those who wrote it or sign its off
I have seen some interesting RAs in my time, the most entertaining being those which appear aspirational in what control measures they’ll be putting in place knowing full well the annual event did not include those controls the previous year.
This example however takes the biscuit for something so significant to organise was “ticked off” as a valid control measure yet no provisional had been made for it would be laughable if it wasn’t for the terrible circumstances that occured.
As is so often the case with tragedy, it is not the result of a single failure but a build up of smaller, yet significant elements going wrong/not being followed that snowballed.
It appears there were several opportunities to see the trouble ahead (first being the night before with no helicopter support arranged for the following day) which were ignored and a “press-on-itis” attitude persevered.
The press-on-itis is the double edged sword in our organisation - we make things work & often get caught up in the excitement & theatre if everything.
Similar thing happened with the Kayley McIntosh accident
Hopefully the new 5x5 risk assessments will make things easier, particularly if CFAVs are able to recognise when things shift from the green to the amber.
I do think we should include more case studies in our adult induction training & not just Risk assessment training.
And, you are ethically disallowed to obtain any data regarding the effects of heat in children as such experiments would be prohibited. You may experiment on adults in the UK with informed consent as they do in clinical trials or at Porton Down.
Even the vast majority of medications for children have never been clinically trialed but are used off label for treatment.
With my road marching hat on I have bee looking at this quite intently and researching it quite intently, especially the older teenagers that we get in Nijmegen.
The first thing that struck me is that there is a lot science and a lot of assumptions and generalisation out there. The main one being children cannot deal with heat as well as adults and there is no differential between toddlers, children, adolescents, older teenagers and young adults. Some studies even suggest that adolescents and older teenagers may even be better at dealing with heat than adults. Saying that as they are and skinnier than adults, they have has their growth spurt but not developed the muscle mass of an adult. they can loose heat much easier. Also people who are not fully grown have smaller sweat pores and this produces smaller beads of sweat which evaporates quicker.
Assumptions and generalisations probably won’t cut it when stood up in the Coroners Court giving evidence, in particular when the deceased have counsel questioning you on your acts and omissions. . Having given evidence in one as an innocent party it’s not an experience I’d want to repeat anytime in the future.
The DASB comments are apposite here, IIRC that the use of WGBT and cha is nor defendable in court.
I quote:
“5. Wet Bulb Globe Thermometer (WBGT) Guidance: Ahead of RIAT22 and mindful of
the risks associated with heat illness, the investigators were referred to a range of
documentation sets including Joint Service Publications, Army Documents and Air Cadet
Internal Briefing Notes that, while containing guidance, appeared to lack any credible
reference to a temperature monitoring system that could be applied to persons under the
age of 18 and for use by local commanders/trainers. Suggestions to extrapolate from WBGT adult guidance are occasionally presented without cross reference to any authoritative research or evidence to underpin the health and safety needs of young people. It is not clear how the MoD could defend any heat related Rtl assessments in the context of a coroner’s court. It is also noteworthy that the adult WBGT reference charts pay no regard to gender or to the varying rates of physical development of young people as they reach adulthood. This is a whole force problem that requires a solution that must address the MoD’s duty of care responsibilities as detailed under Health & Safety legislation.”
I don’t know if it’s been mentioned in this thread already - but Windy.com now has Wet Bulb Temperature as an option to show on their map - not sure how accurate it is to those held on stations etc but interesting to note
I did a bit of digging too a while back. Best (or at least easiest to find) studies seem to be on Teenage American Football players. Did you find anything else?
Previous, potentially incorrect assumptions were - as far as I could tell - based on a lack of overall brain development being intuitively applied. There may be advantages that facilitate heat loss, but there are other factors that I don’t (albeit intuitively) think can be disregarded without further study.
I would also sat that 18 is an arbitrary label that has no relation to the development of the human body. While you can purchase alcohol in the bar and vote in elections at 18, your body will still be growing and developing and not reached peak maturity until the mid 20s with girls will develop slightly earlier the boys being.
Evolution will tell us something about which body shapes are the best for loosing heat and retaining heat. East African and Arabian people tend to be tall and thin while the Sami from Finland and the indigenous people from north Canada tend to be short and thick set.
The majority of them are arguing that the policy is not applicable or suitable for under 18s. But the application for WBGT is suitable for over 18 and surely applicable to staff and therfore if its not safe for staff then by other policy Cadets cannot commence without staff supervision…
I see where you’re coming from, but there tends to be a difference in how much physical work is carried out by supervising CFAV.
For example, a CFAV marshal on a cross country course is working, and in the same conditions as the cadets running the face, yet obviously the cadets are being much more physical. That difference will affect the work:rest tables.
Then make the safe deafult ‘If it’s too hot based on adults, then its likely to be too hot for youngsters’. How many Staff or Cadets faint on parades…whilst standing still in the heat…?
I’ve suffered this, CC on summer camp, we were asked to assist the local wing on the stations family day. Cadets outside, the local wing staff were all in the hanger as it was too hot. We sacked it off at 11 after a few choice words. Auntie Dawn caught up with me in the evening and asked why we abandoned our post, she received more polite choice words and was provided with contacts for station medical center and St Johns who had dealt with several heat related illness during the afternoon.
Disgusting, if it’s too hot for staff then it’s too hot for cadets therefore are at risk, hope you used ‘old Anglo-Saxon’ English’ in your communication and that it was all one way.
Was she actually there and did she follow up your comments?
You missed the point; if the CFAV activity level is lower, then they would be higher up the WRT, so “too hot for the CFAV” is far too late to call it “too hot for cadets”.
If you make the judgement as “too hot for CFAV if they were as active as the cadets”, then you’re back to applying the WRT to under 18s - the original problem.
Making “too hot for CFAV if they were as active as the cadets” a subjective judgement with no basis in WBGT or WRT, then we’re back where we were before with no top cover and bad practice.
That way round is all fine and dandy, nobody’s really disputing that.
Where it becomes sticky is the other way round; ok for adults, not ok for 12 year olds. The “not ok” in this instance would not be provided by anything scientific, and the mooted policy does not help.
Honestly, at this point, we need to stick a WRT in front of some prominent pediatric physio biologist or some such technical title and say “hey, there’s no large pool of relevant research that we know of but if we just knocked this down a level do you think that’s a suitable measure?”.
We don’t have applicable research or a large enough quantity of multiple studies to draw on and extrapolate from (maybe an expert would know more examples), but we need to draw a line. The NYA and FA (who I actually thought might be all over it) are all vague and non-committal as far as I can tell.
Maybe the answer is get all the CF together, with the FA, NYA, RFU, ECB, Scouts, PHE and whoever else, to work out, find out, or fund the finding out. Build, somehow, a national framework for this that everyone can follow, creating an approved list of publicly available data sources (pick the 3 closest and take the highest value - or similar) for if x equipment (WBGT or other) is absent.