Tourist encouraged to take risky photo before falling

[wayno]

Tourist encouraged to take risky photo before falling to her death

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/ar ... d=11524557

[newhue]

My mum always said to me if blind Fredy asked you to jump over the cliff would you. Something I know hand onto my child. I guess the lady and the guid displayed poor judgement that ultimately too all. A nice reminder too for the some of us like to get those must have precarious photo's; just stick with the big picture.

[wayno]

I waas on a commercially guided sea kayak trip, the guide told us he'd never had anyone capsize before.
he got us to hold our paddles up and use the blade like a sail. it was windy and choppy. I wasnt totally comfortable with doing the technique in the conditions but just trusted my guide and did it. it was a double kayak with two tall people in it... a wave and gust of wind hit us at the same time, with our paddles up in the air there wasnt much we could do to stop us capsizing... there was nowhere nearby to beach the kayaks at the time, luckily we were able to get back into them and pump out the kayaks. in a bigger chop we wouldnt have been able to get into them
afterward the guide mentioned he had wondered about the conditions...
if your gut instinct says no, maybe you should follow it...

[GPSGuided]

A big difference that single word 'encouraged' made.

Been hearing of the inquest over this incident over the last day or so on our local ABC radio service and have yet to hear the word 'encouraged'. The prosecutor alleged that the guide gave instruction to the tourists on how to safely make the photo opportunity but didn't hear any mention of encouraging the tourists. Guess we'll hear more in due course and suspect none will now demonstrate the location.

[Hallu]

When you see the other pictures from that tour company (that they've now removed from their Facebook page) : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... edges.html you're not surprised such an accident happened, and the word "encouraged" feels appropriate when the tour guide didn't prevent the tourist from doing it. Those "near cliff" pics are utterly stupid. You wanna risk your life for a couple of "likes" on FB ?

[GPSGuided]

No surprise a British tabloid would fan the story. As for the photos, I'd say it's something some tourists just want to do eg. Wedding Cake in the RNP, not needing anyone else to 'encourage'. Seriously, people need to know their own limits and know how to assess risks, especially for something as obvious as hanging over a cliff. Beyond that, Darwin's Award takes over.

[newhue]

I recall a canyon trip I did in NZ as a backpacker. Your young, on holidays, and on top of the world and loving life. We abed over a waterfall using a rope where the outside sheath had torn, and the inner rope was starting to fray. Perminately slung in the sun and water for speed and ease I assumed. I knew this was bad as I had just done a climbing course back in Aus. I brought this up with the guide before the first person went which wasn't me. Answer was we do this everyday, yes we should replace it soon, but for now its OK. Later we jumped 10m into a rock pool with very little direction besides just jump a bit to the right of that shadow. Trouble was the shadow was hard to see in the aerated swirling turquoise water, and when the first bloke went the guide just turned around with a puckered half sucked looking face and covered her eyes. After establishing he was not dead or injured, she laughed and said a bit more to the right of where he jumped.
Turned out our guide was a Sweedish back packing girlfriend of the business owner. I was not impressed, as she was not very professional, well as far as any adrenaline activity based guid goes in a tourist area.
I chose to go and do what I was hoping to do that day, but I realised I needed to be more vocal about what basic practice needs to be, even it it was just for me. There was a point I could have returned and asked for my money back before going over that first rope with the torn sheath. It was life in my book, and I possibly could have died that day myself regardless of my mothers words. I should have taken it up with the operator, or advised some governing body this mob need to do a bit better and stop being scabby.

Still I would hate to see things like that closed, hand railed, or bogged down is so much safety the excitement of any possibility of any adrenaline is completely snuffed out. Places like Kings Canyon are awesome partly for no edging, and it's great it doesn't litter the natural beauty of it, or make it feel more of a attraction than it already it. Like school kids throwing rocks, this tour company needs to see the principal for their punishment, I just hope the punishement is not dealt out to the rest who visit the area. In my book it's life, as much as it may be the tour operators fault, it's probably just as much as the girl who died. All preventable, but so was the first time you fell off your bike.

[walkerchris77]

Play with fire, get burned. Im sure people could google stupid photos and superimpose their face on it. Alot safer. Your along time dead.

[wayno]

adventure companies have now started to get audited in NZ, its not full proof, but you have to show competence and have any appropriate qualifications to be able to run an outdoors adventure company., Although its put companies doing safer activities out of business because of the costs of the audits. day bush walking isn't quite up there with adrenaline sports. ironically it was accidents in river sledging, and parachuting which brought about the auditing system, and those sports are covered for their audits under other authorities that already exist.

[neil_fahey]

If I was a tour guide, I'm not sure if I'd be recommending people take risks like that, but I don't think it's the guides fault. It's a bit too easy to blame the guide when an adult who is capable of making their own decisions and understanding risks decides to do something like this and dies. Naturally, we always look for someone to blame though.

[Kainas]

Because in these cases the adults don't understand the risks. They see lots of other people doing it, as well as lots of photos of tour guides doing it... and then they feel silly for thinking it is risky.

Peer pressure, with the backing of someone in authority (ie the tour guide) is a powerful thing, and the tour guides should take this responsibility seriously.

[GPSGuided]

If an adult can't sense the risks of climbing over a vertical drop cliff, then they are sheep or Dodo and have failed the adult maturity test. Darwin Award awaits, cliff or no cliff. The tour guide's responsibility is yet to be determined.

[wayno]

If I was a tour guide, I'm not sure if I'd be recommending people take risks like that, but I don't think it's the guides fault. It's a bit too easy to blame the guide when an adult who is capable of making their own decisions and understanding risks decides to do something like this and dies. Naturally, we always look for someone to blame though.

i disagree.
a fair few tourists are naive and that can be why they opt for guides to do the risk assessment and they take their advice at face value as i did when i was in a kayak and carried out a non standard move the instructor advised me was safe but still capsised the kayak i was in... i never would have attempted to do that without the advise of my guide and i would have considered it too risky without his encouragement... but not being very experienced in kaaks i trusted the guides advice, i woulnt have if i' have known how likely we were to capsize

[Hallu]

Yes those tourists are basically kids in a foreign country. They ask silly questions, and the guides shouldn't encourage silly behaviour. Maybe at one point they didn't encourage this and got tired of saying "no don't do it" I don't know, but having a guide makes you feel safe and you listen to him, so when he says it's ok, you go for it regardless of your instincts... As Newhue's story shows, these people are too young to fully understand the risks, we should stop being snotty and saying "oh yeah another candidate for the Darwin award"...

[Kainas]

I am sure there must be some good psychological studies out there showing this as a phenomenon. I.e People taking greater risks around others than they would if left alone (I did find this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_polarization).

Just to add. I do agree with a comment above about the actual responsibility of this tour guide in this situation being yet to be determined. For me this discussion is not about tarring that man, but discussing what responsibilities leaders should have.

[Nuts]

With only three trips till guides can lead it must be a fairly routine itinerary, will be hard for the management to escape substantial blame.

[neil_fahey]

All fair points. I think it definitely has to be considered that if the tour guide had said don't do it, there's a fair chance someone would do it anyway and then the guide would be slammed anyway for having not stopped them. Maybe the choice was made to attempt to minimise the chance of harm, by telling people the best way to go about it.

[wayno]

All fair points. I think it definitely has to be considered that if the tour guide had said don't do it, there's a fair chance someone would do it anyway and then the guide would be slammed anyway for having not stopped them. Maybe the choice was made to attempt to minimise the chance of harm, by telling people the best way to go about it.

the reality is a lot of people esp a lot of townies dont have the ability to risk assess in the outdoors or even the coordination to cope with anything much harder than a footpath and stairs.
just dont encourage or endorse it in the first place to reduce the potential for it to happen, its like DOC in NZ, guides are banned from offering advise about any track or route that isnt an official DOC maintained track, they dont want to encourage people to potentially do something DOC doesnt approve of, that doesnt stop people doing it, but DOC don't want to endorse it to try and reduce potential issues with accidents and search and rescue.
Occupational safety and health in NZ would have a field day prosecuting that australian guide. they'd probably throw the book at him.
unfortunately in guided situations you have to work to accommodate the lowest common denomenator or you will get this sort of scenario where there is a serious incident.
i went on a guided walk on hte tongariro crossing with a friend who was also a guide.. the head guide would stop from time to time to let the slowest people catch up. one lady was lagging behind a lot, she had asthma, as soon as she caught up the guide just continued on again leaving her behind once again, she was always struggling to catch up and never had a decent rest, the guide was accommodating everyone but her, the guide wasnt giving her a fair deal at all, he didnt seem to care that much. with an attitude like that it doesnt take much for a scenario to turn into an adverse incident. the swiss cheese scenario where all the holes line up.

[Eremophila]

I am sure there must be some good psychological studies out there showing this as a phenomenon. I.e People taking greater risks around others than they would if left alone (I did find this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_polarization.

Also known as "the age of the Selfie"

[Nuts]

AFAIK Neil, the company managers are still saying they knew nothing of the practice. It is interesting, a tragic outcome first and foremost, but blame is inevitable. The company may well have been better off advertising the 'cliff hang' and as an additional risk, like the danger in (eg.) a bungy jump where just simply disclosure/ acceptance of known risk is enough to cover everyone.

[neil_fahey]

Ahhh okay nuts. That changes things. You might be right about them being better off advertising it. :/

[GPSGuided]

All fair points. I think it definitely has to be considered that if the tour guide had said don't do it, there's a fair chance someone would do it anyway and then the guide would be slammed anyway for having not stopped them. Maybe the choice was made to attempt to minimise the chance of harm, by telling people the best way to go about it.

Case in point not that far away... Climb or not climb Uluru. The message from the tour operators are pretty uniform these days yet people still climb it.

[Kainas]

All fair points. I think it definitely has to be considered that if the tour guide had said don't do it, there's a fair chance someone would do it anyway and then the guide would be slammed anyway for having not stopped them. Maybe the choice was made to attempt to minimise the chance of harm, by telling people the best way to go about it.

Case in point not that far away... Climb or not climb Uluru. The message from the tour operators are pretty uniform these days yet people still climb it.

Not really a fair comparison. Climbing "Ayers Rock" has been part of European-Australian culture for generations The change to referring to the landmark as "Uluru" and respecting the aboriginal heritage is a great thing, but the issue about climbing is less about risk and more about respecting a culture, and hence whether the tourist comes with that aspect in mind... They arrive with pre-conceived ideas about what they are going to do, probably supported by long dinner-table discussions with their peers at home, the type that create a type of stubbornes (although many opinions are changed by the guides). Ie. are they coming to see "Ayers Rock" or "Uluru"?

[GPSGuided]

Actually, risk of climbing the Uluru is a stated co-factor amongst others. Obviously not as daunting as climbing off a sheer cliff. At this stage, it's way too categorical to blame the tourist guide as not all tourists are sensible angels. The worst are those who fail to recognise their own physical ability.