In the latest Descent (arrived this morning) Martyn Farr reports on a rescue from OFD and states:

As is normal for the OFD system, there is a one-hour grace period following the stated time due out, then a rescue is initiated ...

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Two questions immediately come to mind:

Why?

and

Is this departure from logical practice explicitly pointed out on the board at SWCC?

An hour is a long time, an hour for many injuries can see the difference between life and death. For these reasons, my club has a very clear policy which states that a call out will be initiated at the time given by the team for their return. I have acted as call-out for our guys on innumerable occasions and only once have I made a wrong call on this (though as that caused another very valuable lesson to be learnt about police response I do not regret it).

What is the point in waiting an hour? If a party is overdue it is overdue, simple. We do not know why until contact is made with them. If they are a bit lost, then you might meet them coming down the hill, no harm done; if they are trapped or injured then a delay could be serious.

Instructions given to call-outs need to be clear and simple, they cannot always be left with other cavers, so something on the lines of "If we are not back/have not phoned you by X time then you call this number and tell them the following ...". That's what we teach our guys. Teaching them to say different things to different people in different circumstances can only lead to confusion and error.





In the same issue there is another rescue related article discussing flood related incidents in the dales. This one notes that:

Two-thirds of incidents involved "instructor-led" groups.

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Does this call into question the quality of teaching that these instructors get?

It depends very much on whether the 'due out' time on the ticket is 'call out' time. Might it be simply a time to expect the key to be returned? I don't see it matters PROVIDED it is made very clear what the policy is at Penwyllt. I can see there might be the risk that a party enjoying itself a bit might give itself a bit more time before leaving, using up the grace period, just because it is there. Whatever the rule, as long as people stick to it, I see no problem. If you make it the 'call out' time, parties will just add another hour to their expected trip duration, and you are back where you started.

Regarding the second observation, Instructor-led groups by their very nature will include inexperienced people, so although they might be well led, the individuals will be more prone to 'slips and trips'. I suspect you would need to look a bit closer at the details of the rescues to determine whether improved quality of teaching would have made any difference.

Peter Burgess said:

Regarding the second observation, Instructor-led groups by their very nature will include inexperienced people, so although they might be well led, the individuals will be more prone to 'slips and trips'. I suspect you would need to look a bit closer at the details of the rescues to determine whether improved quality of teaching would have made any difference.

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Sorry, unclear on my part. These were all flooding related incidents.

graham said:

In the same issue there is another rescue related article discussing flood related incidents in the dales. This one notes that:

Two-thirds of incidents involved "instructor-led" groups.

Click to expand...

Does this call into question the quality of teaching that these instructors get?

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No, I don't think so, Graham - I think it's possibly more of a reflection of the nature of the employer rather than the employees. Outdoor centres take bookings and provide scheduled trips on that basis, including caving (arguably caving should be a "let's see what the weather's like and make the decision on the day, keeping it as an add-on, rather than chiselling it in a stone calendar"). The Mendip beginners' cave, Goatchurch, is vastly different from such beginners' caves as Porth-yr-Ogof and Long Churn in that the latter two flood catastrophically whereas the former doesn't flood at all. If it was true, across that board, that "two-thirds of incidents involved instructor-led groups" then one would expect Goatchurch to feature to a far greater extent in the Mendip rescue stats. No, I think that caving leaders may find that they are frequently expected to run scheduled trips in marginal conditions and, over time, they become weary/complacent and a "I'm only doing what I'm being told" mindset is understandable. I suspect that, sometime in the future, in caving regions where the popular novice caves flood it is not unfeasible to imagine that caving will simply be removed from the list of pursuits being offered by large, schedule-bound, organisations. I think a similar problem exists with the months-in-advance permit system, also; the logic being that "You never change the plan" - (a rather surprising expression recently heard from a club caver); I was always under the impression that (a) There is no fixed plan, (b) there is always a "Plan B" and (c) the trip should be altered at any time to suit the prevailing conditions, the ability of the group and the "hunch factor". Pre-scheduled "timetabled" trips do not fit this model. Therefore my premise is that it is the system which is at fault, or at least compounding the likelihood of fault existing, rather than the leaders (whose job security may be jeopardised by having a set-to with the management over whether or not their services are required on any given day, based on the prevailing forecast). 2p, to be getting on with.

On Graham's other point I am in full agreement. The callout time is the callout time.

graham said:

Peter Burgess said:

Regarding the second observation, Instructor-led groups by their very nature will include inexperienced people, so although they might be well led, the individuals will be more prone to 'slips and trips'. I suspect you would need to look a bit closer at the details of the rescues to determine whether improved quality of teaching would have made any difference.

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Sorry, unclear on my part. These were all flooding related incidents.

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No, I should say sorry - you did mention the connection with flooding. I didn't make the connection. It suggests that flood-prone caves are possibly more attractive sites for instructor-led groups than dry ones. Would there be a reason for this?

It suggests that flood-prone caves are possibly more attractive sites for instructor-led groups than dry ones. Would there be a reason for this?

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there are more of them?

The number of absolutely safe does not take any water at all caves is very very limited.

I agree Call-out should = CALL OUT AT ONCE time. BUT that a clear demarkation is made between DUE out and CALL out.

caving_fox said:

It suggests that flood-prone caves are possibly more attractive sites for instructor-led groups than dry ones. Would there be a reason for this?

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there are more of them?

The number of absolutely safe does not take any water at all caves is very very limited.

I agree Call-out should = CALL OUT AT ONCE time. BUT that a clear demarkation is made between DUE out and CALL out.

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It does come down to inexperience of the party surely ? While a group of experienced cavers may have the fitness, skills and confidence to make their way upstream against a strong flow of water (for example by traversing on walls out of the flow), those without the fitness, skills and confidence will struggle at floor level against the often underestimated force of high water. Clearly, in cases of severe flooding, nobody is going to be safe. So, if it is a given that inexperienced caves are more vulnerable, then a combination of choice of cave, risk of poor weather, and availability of an alternative activity is going to have a large bearing on the situation. I see how Chris's observations on business pressures will also be an issue.

You don't have to go caving to have a good adventurous time in safety. If that is made clear in any prospectus, that an alternative activity will be done if conditions are considered risky, this should remove the business pressure of "we promised caving so we have no option".

Regarding call-out, if you want immediate call-out at Penwyllt, it seems you should simply put your 'due out' time 1 hour before the call-out time you choose.

I've booked a couple of trips with instructors for family groups a while back, the documents sent made it pretty clear that the trips were weather dependant. Mind you the chap we went with was his own boss rather than an employee of a centre.

i can remember meeting the south wales callout system with some surprise.
back in them days in my circle, if you had a callout time at all it was probably "we should be out by 1am, if you don't hear from us by 8am come looking"

graham said:

Is this departure from logical practice explicitly pointed out on the board at SWCC?

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Yes it is. There is, IIRC, a note clearly placed beneath (?) the call-out board.

Unrelated to the above, I have an issue with the board at Bull Pot Farm which asks for the time in and the time out (or some such wording), with no reference to "call out". I have previously taken this at face value and put down the time I expect to exit the cave. On one occasion I came out of Top Sink on time and walked back (taking about 40 mins at a guess) to meet a very irate gentleman stood outside The Farm saying I was badly overdue and he was just about to call out CRO. This left me a little bemused.

I know the call-out board at the MCG is very clear that the time stated IS a call-out time. Personally, so long as the policy is made clear, I don't mind what it is.

graham said:

Two-thirds of incidents involved "instructor-led" groups.

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Does this call into question the quality of teaching that these instructors get?

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I would suggest that, in part, it reflects the much greater use of Long Churn by instructed groups over non-instructed groups.

cap 'n chris said:

Outdoor centres take bookings and provide scheduled trips on that basis, including caving (arguably caving should be a "let's see what the weather's like and make the decision on the day, keeping it as an add-on, rather than chiselling it in a stone calendar"). The Mendip beginners' cave, Goatchurch, is vastly different from such beginners' caves as Porth-yr-Ogof and Long Churn in that the latter two flood catastrophically whereas the former doesn't flood at all.

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True, but it should be noted that there is at least one suitable wet-weather alternative in the Dales. Even faced with commercial pressure (if indeed that exists!) it is not necessary to go to Long Churn when floods are forecast.

It could be that the hour "grace period" allows for cavers to have a quick investigation to check that the overdue cavers are still in fact underground and not sat in the pub or somewhere.

An hour may seem like a long time before issuing a general call-out, but in cave rescue most rescues take an appreciable time and if an injured casualty has survived for the time it takes for someone ot get to the surface and call 999 and then for the first resuers to arrive on the scene, gear up and make their way to the casualty's location, than an extra hour is unlikely to make a huge difference in terms of survival since it will probably be several hours since this incident occured.

But I'm sure an actual explanation would best be from soemone in SWCC/WBCRT.

FWIW, at our hut (Orpheus CC) we have a board to record caving trips with both Estimated Time Going Underground, Estimated Tim Back on Surface and Time for Resue Call-out as well as the expected stuff such as Date, Location, Cave/Route, Number in Party, Car Registrations, Name of "Leader".

And if a party is not back by the "Call-out" time, then a CAll-out will be actioned and this has been done in the past.

Grace or no grace. Cave Troll makes a comment that touches on the wider ethics (were there such a thing) in an interesting way. Aren?t people encouraged to call upon rescue services a little too readily these days, to the point where the latter?s state of readiness and apparently seamless response is taken as a given? Amongst many groups of fairly tough repute, there used at one time to be an unwritten ?no-rescue? credo ? the fairly obvious reason being that the knowledge that someone is always going to ?come and get you out? inevitably colours one?s attitude and general caving mentality - compare certain early Antarctic exploits with the conviction held by today?s explorers that rescue, even at the pole, is only a phone-call away. The effect is most noticeable amongst novices. Of course no-one in their right mind is going to turn away help in the event of an accident, and rescue teams should, and do, operate to the best criteria they have available, but isn?t there something fundamentally questionable about making call-out times so determinate?

I thought the call out time was actually determined by the group going underground on the basis that they would expect a rescue to be initiated at the time they've specified.

The "no-rescue credo" surely argues for there to be precisely that - no rescue; the logical extension being no rescue organisations run by cavers for cavers. I reckon there's a discussion brewing! 

To suggest that people are encouraged to call upon rescue services a little too readily these days may well be proven relevant after the event (and arguably is relevant with surface rescue teams such as ambulance crews being asked to attend someone who can't switch channels on their telly) but in the case of cave rescue where the circumstances are beyond transmission by easy means, the presumption must always be that a rescue should be initiated when a rescue callout time has been reached.

That's an interesting observation of Armchair's. While I see a great deal more care being taken by my fellow cavers these days to take spare kit and a 'survival' poly bag etc, and to ALWAYS arrange a call-out (I never used to do this when visiting 'familiar' sites), I also see a different attitude towards rescue. When a call-out arrangement for a trip has been set up, the existence of a rescue team then seems to instill a certain confidence that others will always be there if needed, instead of what might have been more prevalent in earlier days that your well-being was up to you, and the "Rescue" was going to be the safety net of last resort. Are we treating "the Rescue" a bit like the AA? I've "signed up" so I'll be OK.

The logical extension being that "hard trips" are purposively engaged in without pre-informing anyone of the location or other callout info. Surely an unwise state of affairs?

cap 'n chris said:

The logical extension being that "hard trips" are purposively engaged in without pre-informing anyone of the location or other callout info. Surely an unwise state of affairs?

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I don't follow that logic.

graham said:

In the latest Descent ... there is another rescue related article discussing flood related incidents in the dales. This one notes that:

Two-thirds of incidents involved "instructor-led" groups.

Click to expand...

Does this call into question the quality of teaching that these instructors get?

Click to expand...

I think you need to be careful in the interpretation of this. What makes a trip "instructor-led"? This does not just mean paying customers with little or no caving experience being taken underground by a professional. If I take a group of novices caving I could be seen as running an instructor-led trip. But at some point these novices will have done enough caving that it could be considered I am no longer an instructor, just another caver in the party who happens to know a particular cave better than the other members of the party. But who defines when I am an instructor and when I am just another caver in a group? In any case, I've not had any teaching (apart from one SRT course years ago when I was still a novice myself), unless you count being led by other cavers as teaching.

graham said:

Is this departure from logical practice explicitly pointed out on the board at SWCC?

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I certainly didn't notice this a few weeks ago. 

Surely it is for the rescue Controller to decide on a 'grace' period or not?

footleg said:

graham said:

In the latest Descent ... there is another rescue related article discussing flood related incidents in the dales. This one notes that:

Two-thirds of incidents involved "instructor-led" groups.

Click to expand...

Does this call into question the quality of teaching that these instructors get?

Click to expand...

I think you need to be careful in the interpretation of this. What makes a trip "instructor-led"? This does not just mean paying customers with little or no caving experience being taken underground by a professional. If I take a group of novices caving I could be seen as running an instructor-led trip. But at some point these novices will have done enough caving that it could be considered I am no longer an instructor, just another caver in the party who happens to know a particular cave better than the other members of the party. But who defines when I am an instructor and when I am just another caver in a group? In any case, I've not had any teaching (apart from one SRT course years ago when I was still a novice myself), unless you count being led by other cavers as teaching.

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Acknowledged. I was relying on the exact wording of the article.