Paddleboarding tragedy (why did she do this?)

She’ll only do 5 years - so not even 1.5 years per victim.

From the report

"Much has been made of the fact that you were running your Salty Dog business whilst first suspended from firearms duty and then off sick with stress and anxiety and continued to run it even after permission for your sideline business had been withdrawn by your employer. It is an unattractive feature of the case that does not reflect well on you, but it does not amount to an aggravating feature

Didn’t she get sacked from the police because of insurance fraud? Or did that come later?

At the time, she was on sick leave from the police with stress.

So running a business and getting paid by the police at the same time.

When I first read it,I was shocked and thought it was a very extreme response.

Once I read the entire story,I could see why she was given that sentence.

So arrogant and pointless loss of lives.

This. I’ve met a few narcissist types who think they can get away with anything they want and who are generally deluded and believe they are capable of things that others aren’t. Apparently she was posting happy photos of herself partying, on social media only a few days later. That fits with the sort of personality type described.

See my post above, but also the link below for a much more detailed explanation: https://practical.engineering/blog/2019/3/16/drowning-machine-the-dangers-of-low-head-dams

I used to do a lot of white water kayaking and when I read about the story I immediately knew what kind of weir the one in Haverfordwest would be. First photo I saw confirmed it.

That kind of weir, with a vertical drop off, is notoriously dangerous. So much so that they are colloquially known as 'drowning machines' among white water paddlers. Even without the river being in flood, it's an extreme hazard because the water circulates and drags you constantly back towards the weir. With the river in flood it's only luck that they didn't all drown.

It's not a matter of experience, these weirs are extremely dangerous no matter how much experience you have, as demonstrated by the death of the instructor who was very fit and experienced in watersports.

You always come out and 'portage' (walk with your watercraft) round a hazard like that. The fact she didn't do this suggests she had absolutely no idea of the risks of moving water. Honestly, it is pretty much the first thing you learn when you do the most basic moving water safety course.

'there was no safety briefing and the participants were not even told about the weir.'

This is staggering, how on earth did she think they'd navigate it? Understandable if on kayaks perhaps but paddleboarding is a standing thing isn't it?

Were they all beginners do we know?

In response to the 'could it happen again' the answer is yes. Currently there is strict regulation of offering adventurous activities to Children but the only legislation covering adults is the general health & safety legislation. It is only because of the extreme nature of the failures in this case that they were able to bring gross negligence charges against her.

It is a very difficult area to legislate because no matter what you do there is an inherent risk in all watersports, mountaineering activities etc that can be reduced significantly but never eliminated without changing the activity. Walking on a ridge with 1000 ft drops will always have the risk of falling off no matter how well run. I think there also needs to be more to ensure people understand the risks and accept them if they chose.

It was Gross negligence. It wasn’t just a poor decision in the day. She had no risk assessment, she wasn’t qualified,
there was no safety briefing and the participants were not even told about the weir. She’s not right in the head clearly.

Yes i could have added "at their level of skill" but thats pretty obvious isn't it?

It doesn't look like they were well prepared for what they had planned to do for the day.

Few people wearing PFDs
Inadequate clothing for the day
It was late October when it happened. The river and the estuary wouldn't have been that warm.
A river in flood. What was the current like downstream?
It someone had fallen in upstream of the weir, they could easily have been swept towards the weir
If someone had fallen in downstream, they could have been swept along with the current and would have been at risk of hypothermia

It was a poorly planned trip - and the people on it seemed to have some prior experience of paddle boarding so should have taken some responsibility themselves for appropriate clothing and PFDs even if they were paying to go on the trip.

There should have been a risk assessment done - including clothing requirements and PFD requirements.

@jasflowers could you explain a bit more about weirs and the functions of the various bits? Or point me in the direction of a 'weirs for dummies' type website?

I'm not a fan of water deeper than a metre and preferably not moving water.

She will serve the whole sentence because when let out of prison early, she will be on licence and will be supervise and will have a few specific conditions to obey.

Stupidity and over confidence. She was confident she knew what she was doing and was too stupid to realise she didn't, no excuse at all..

passingstranger to go back to your earlier question of could this happen again? Yes of course, I mean obviously you’d hope anyone with a gung-ho attitude would re-think given her prison sentence, but unfortunately you get chancers in every walk of life, yes there might be more regulation, but she wasn’t qualified to take them out in those conditions anyway, so further regulation doesn’t necessarily mean improved safety. There already is a certain amount of regulation, Lloyd ignored health and safety which is why she was given a ten year sentence (2 years per manslaughter charge +2 years for H & S breach).
Hopefully more weir owners will look to make weirs safer, and I believer the HFW weir will now have improved signage warning of the dangers, and further construction to reduce the force of the hydraulic jump (it was suppose to have had a structure added either side of the fish pass, to make it easier to exit, but from reading the report, it seems this wasn’t under taken.
I think water safety should be added to the PHSE syllabus at schools, I mean the physics in itself is really interesting, but education would be the best way forward, especially given the amount of rivers and coastline the UK has!

If you look at her Facebook profile and read some of the victim impact statements you’ll get a feel for the type of woman she was. I can’t believe she carried on going on holiday, socialising, just carried on as normal really. Paul and his wife lived ‘less than 10 metres away’ from her if you read the wife’s statements. Must have been so painful to watch her, an ex friend carry on as normal and blame your husband.

What a terrible thing to happen to them all. The more I read about it all the worse I feel about it. It’s just awful and if any good comes of this it’s that other people remember this tragedy and go into these potentially dangerous but easy to access hobbies with their eyes open to safety.

Massive ego trip. She also was an ex police officer shows how corrupt they are. Also the people going must of been massive thrill seekers- some even refused to wear life vests- at the costs of their lives. Shocking and sad the whole story

Going down this structure isn't safe

Safer than tumbling down into the weir. She didn’t even give them that modicum chance of safety.

no, obviously not?
Did you even read my post? I have no idea how you managed to get the exact opposite from what I actually said.

I was replying to a poster that said "Paddle boards are for flat calm water" as an absolute statement. It was literally embedded in my post and I then repeated it in bold to indicate this was what I was specifically responding to

I was only saying that this isn't always true, and people can/do use paddleboards in different types of water, but then went on to specify that this wasn't what happened in this case.

Literally nowhere did I say or even suggest that paddleboard surfing was what these people were doing, just that it is something that does exist.

I imagine she was thought she could make a quick buck by jumping on the latest bandwagon/Intstagram craze, which I think says a lot about her. Exploitative, lazy, mercenary. 10 years is a joke for being so reckless.