Rhino Rift incident

[graham]

I am sure Graham will correct me if I am wrong, but there will have been no element of "employment" here, so is was not a job of work, in the official sense, being undertaken.

Correct, Peter.

 

[martinr]

Isn't it about reasonable precautions being taken to keep people safe from hazards that risk serious injury?

Hazards? Like a loose boulder above a pitch perhaps?

 

[cavex]

Yes, and not allowing access to a cave full of toxic fumes. The near miss on this occasion was two guys descending on ropes into noxious fumes caused by other people who did very little, it seems, to prevent such. Just seems reckless and if commissioned by a company it's agents (employed or not) might need to report the incident under RIDDOR perhaps. I was just asking if it was reported, guess not. Perhaps the work wasn't commissioned by CCC and that's a different issue of concern as there might not have been any permission. Who knows what people were thinking at the time. Perhaps this isn't regarded as a serious incident? Is anyone laughing? In short cavers descended into bad air caused by explosives, suffered breathing difficulties that lasted several hours and it thankfully wasn't fatal at the time they went down. Others haven't been so lucky. Quite a few people must be very relieved.

 

[martinr]

snip

....  a cave full of toxic fumes.....

... The near miss on this occasion was two guys descending on ropes into noxious fumes caused by other people who did very little, it seems, to prevent such.....

..... In short cavers descended into bad air caused by explosives, suffered breathing difficulties that lasted several hours and it thankfully wasn't fatal at the time they went down.....

Just asking - what is your source for the above statement?

 

[Bottlebank]

Yes, and not allowing access to a cave full of toxic fumes. The near miss on this occasion was two guys descending on ropes into noxious fumes caused by other people who did very little, it seems, to prevent such. Just seems reckless and if commissioned by a company it's agents (employed or not) might need to report the incident under RIDDOR perhaps. I was just asking if it was reported, guess not. Perhaps the work wasn't commissioned by CCC and that's a different issue of concern as there might not have been any permission. Who knows what people were thinking at the time. Perhaps this isn't regarded as a serious incident? Is anyone laughing? In short cavers descended into bad air caused by explosives, suffered breathing difficulties that lasted several hours and it thankfully wasn't fatal at the time they went down. Others haven't been so lucky. Quite a few people must be very relieved.

Even if the regs applied which they don't as has already been pointed out the incident would still not reportable from what we know of it - it doesn't take long to read the guidelines - http://www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/reportable-incidents.htm - as there has been no serious injury and the list of reportable gas incidents doesn't cover this.

This would be much better debated off line.

Lets move on.

 

[crickleymal]

snip

....  a cave full of toxic fumes.....

... The near miss on this occasion was two guys descending on ropes into noxious fumes caused by other people who did very little, it seems, to prevent such.....

..... In short cavers descended into bad air caused by explosives, suffered breathing difficulties that lasted several hours and it thankfully wasn't fatal at the time they went down.....

Just asking - what is your source for the above statement?

Third post in this thread?

 

[martinr]

snip

....  a cave full of toxic fumes.....

... The near miss on this occasion was two guys descending on ropes into noxious fumes caused by other people who did very little, it seems, to prevent such.....

..... In short cavers descended into bad air caused by explosives, suffered breathing difficulties that lasted several hours and it thankfully wasn't fatal at the time they went down.....

Just asking - what is your source for the above statement?

Third post in this thread?

In otherwords, heresay. Yet he  suggests it should be reported under RIDDOR 

 

[cavex]

These are the facts as known to me:

On the 17th July Graham Mullan emailed the key-holding member clubs of CCC with the following message:

Apologies for the short notice, it cannot be helped.  Tomorrow, Friday 18th July, an attempt will be made to drop the loose rock in Rhino Rift and thus stabilise the third pitch head, once more.  Please, therefore DO NOT issue any keys for this cave to anybody UNTIL the work has both been carried out and a subsequent inspection has taken place to assess whether it has worked.
I shall keep you all informed of progress.

The work as described was carried out on Friday 18th July.  No warning notice was placed in the cave or at the entrance.  The padlock was not changed.

On Saturday 19th July two cavers (unaware of these events) used a Wessex key to access the cave.    They abseiled down into fumes and experienced considerable difficulty re-ascending the ropes.  Approximately two hours later they came to our shop in Cheddar and spoke with my wife.  They were both still experiencing breathing difficulties at that time.

On Sunday 20th July the Wessex Cave Club posted Graham's email of the 17th on their group email, with an apology for a delay in dissemination.

 

[cavex]

All the hearsay is on here for all to see. 

 

[martinr]

All the hearsay is on here for all to see.

It must be true. You read it on the internet?

 

[exsumper]

Isn't it about reasonable precautions being taken to keep people safe from hazards that risk serious injury?

What ? Hazards like having to read posts by gutless cowards who register with UKCaving just to post 6 anonymous posts on a single subject?

 

[badger]

maybe we do not have all the full details and we only have reports true or otherwise on here.
fortunately if the details on this are close to the truth then we are lucky as the incident was no more than a near miss.
having done quite a few H&S course's my understanding that if the near incident was an incident then H&S would be involved and there would be a case to answered, the biggest thing that would be looked at what procedures where put in place to stop people entering the cave, i.e changing the lock and put up notices in the cave to this effect, and an e-mail would I think would be considered insufficient.
we could like many topics on this forum go back and forth with recriminations or my solicitor trumps yours and so on so on etc etc.
no of which is very helpful or useful. Hopefully all lessons have been learnt and if this was to happen again the cavers concerned would do things very different, as I am sure they would have had the put a bit more thought to the situation previously.
so maybe it might be time for forum ops to lock this before we got 30 pages of tit for tat messages.

 

[bograt]

Isn't it about reasonable precautions being taken to keep people safe from hazards that risk serious injury?

No, its about reasonable precautions in a place of work! Rhino is a system whose access is governed by the Charterhouse CC, whose remit is No access for professional or financial gain, Hence, not a place of work. There is a document in the production stage that will state that cavers go underground understanding that any risk is up to themselves, although, I must admit, that better communication would have aleviated the situation in this case.

 

[ah147]

I hate the fact that a caver seriously is trying to report other cavers to RIDDOR.

It seriously makes me despair the whole "report them" attitude. As an analogy, if your neighbour was playing loud music, I'd pop round and ask them to turn it down.

I suspect the first thing your neighbour would know about your issue would be a knock on the door from the plod.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[cavex]

That's not happening as far as I know.  It's up to responsible company officials to report dangerous occurances themselves and not for members of the public. The RIDDOR website is very clear about this (there's a link in one of the precious posts).  It's up to CCC to check this out themselves as failure to report dangerous occurances has attracted heavy fines for others and that would really not be at all helpful to any of us wanting to cave on Mendip.  Some say there's nothing to report, others are concerned about what happened, some horrified. I happen to think it was a serious near miss and some reflection is needed. It's important that near misses don't happen, best practice evolves all the time and that's why reporting is helpful. As I wrote earlier, there are quiet a few lucky people involved in this and that is a good thing. It really isn't my business to report anything, though I can have an opinion. That's what this forum is for I thought.

 

[domestos bend]

FFS reporting to RIDDOR Etc one of the attractions of caving used to be the freedom from this kind of stuff .  This doesnt mean that we cant learn from mistakes but we now have a doomed generation of unhealthy schoolkids due to a misguided attempt to remove all possible risks from life.

 

[badger]

perhaps instead of the CCC being very quiet on this possibly incident, they should put out a statement what the actual incident was and what they have done/put in place to make sure it does not happen again.

 

[SpeleoTrog]

Cavex - which bit of the explanation is not getting into your skull. The requirements for RIDDOR reporting are covered by the Health and Safety AT WORK act. Since nobody involved was AT WORK, the Health and Safety AT WORK act does not apply.