Deaths by accident, why do they keep happening?

[Rhiannon]

After reading todays Mail I feel compelled to put fingers to the keyboard. One story is about the 10 year old scout that was on an expedition up Snowdon and he fell and was killed. The other about a family of 4 that went out on a boat in Italy, only the mother survived, the husband and two sons drowned in a storm.

It seems to happen again and again. School trips to ridiculously unsafe places with inadequate staff (albeit this was a Scout trip). We often hear about children that have drowned in a lake or died on a mountain somewhere.

And what about going out on a boat and not taking or wearing lifejackets? I suppose I'm too sensible I don't know but I wouldn't dream of taking out a boat without adequate safety protection.

The Snowdon thing was unbelievable - a 10 year old boy left to negotiate his way down alone while not on a proper path. I also thought the drowning of an 11 year old girl in France a few months back was extraordinary. She was described as a weak swimmer yet was left to swim in a crowded lake with a tangled mass of weeds under the surface with something like one teacher per 15 pupils. It worries me hugely that people could take such risks.

Rhiannon, the same thoughts go through my mind when I read such stories. It's the ones that are reported in sketchy detail that can be really haunting. I want to grab the reporter by the throat and say what exactly do you mean? did they have life jackets on board and not wear them? were they faulty? whatever happened? It's like that awful story of the student on safari who for some reason didn't zip up his tent at night and consequently got eaten by a lioness.

I know the time will soon come when my son will start going on trips. Even now he is old enough to go on an annual council-run summer adventure holiday week. Although he might know a few children, the scheme is run by virtual strangers, albeit qualified. According to the information, they take the group of 6 to 11-year-olds for all sorts of swimming, sailing, climbing and walking activities. I'm sorry, even though I let my son play out, the thought of this is too daunting.

I think I'll take my cue from my son. When he stops stumbling over his shoelaces, coming a cropper when he inevitably runs too fast down a hill, stepping off the pavement to get a stray football, and starts LISTENING FIRST TIME to adult instructions, then I'll feel he may be ready to venture forth.

Sorry, I'm rambling....

I have only just read the report about the 10yr old falling off the mountain and it did sound like gross negligence on the part of the man in charge. I have to say that accidents can and do happen just as easily on family holidays. A couple of years ago during the summer there were at least three tragic stories of children who had been killed either by drowning or falling. The actual legal ratio on school trips is one adult to ten children. Would anyone consider taking 10 children on a trip round the shops and hope to keep an eye on all of them? Yet this applies to ski trips etc! The sad thing is that children will not have the opportunity to do these activities soon because nobody will want to take the risk. I think you have the right idea Tigermoth, we all know our children best and trust your gut instinct on whether they're ready for it or not.

Me again, do you all remember the school canoeing trip where some of the party drowned? And last year the school trip crossing a swollen river/stream and two of the girls got swept away and drowned.

You're right 1 adult to 10 kids is not sufficient for a dangerous sport.

I have trouble enough letting my 6 year old go to soccer camp!

Yes, I think that a 1 adult to 10 children ratio sounds really worrying. IMO it must also make a difference if the adults in charge of an expedition are from the locality or not. I would feel very uneasy if my son was going into the wilds with adults who were as new to the layout of the land as he was.

Surely qualifications alone can't equip you? I passed my driving test and I think I am a competant driver. But put me in a new country, with challenging new road conditions, and my driving ability is definitely tested and probably impaired.

For many years I've participated in what many consider a dangerous sport (caving). As part of this I've been involved in a lot of novice training trips, and for things like that 1 adult for 10 kids is nowhere near enough. Even leaving aside safety considerations, I don't think the ratio is high enough for the leaders to be aware if someone is getting worried or scared, or is just not enjoying the experience. At the end of the day the child may never want to do it again, but they should come away from with some personal sense of achievement, or what's the point?

Some of the things I've personally seen over the years where school trips, scout groups etc (and squaddies - the Army are not exempt) are involved horrify me. When my kids reach the age of wanting to go on these things I think I'll want to do a lot of investigation of the organisation, qualifications of the leaders, their attitudes etc before I agree. What still worries me is that obviously within my sport I know what is safe practice, but will I recognise it in another sport?

Don't get me wrong, I think these trips can be very good for kids (the old-fashioned term 'character-building' unfortunately springs to mind). They can be a lot of fun, and can give some children the opportunity to face a challenge and gain a lot of self-respect (who doesn't feel pleased with themselves when they reach the top of a mountain under their own steam?). I was someone who was hopeless at sport at school, and it was only because somebody took me on an outdoor pursuits trip that I discovered that there were physical things I enjoyed and could do. My life would have been far less rich without it.

My feeling is that we mustn't stop our kids from having the chance to try these things. The difficulty lies in getting the balance between risk and benefit right.

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i have often been an accompanying parent on school trips - infant and junior - in the past.

for the infant trips you normally get only 4-5 kids to supervise, and even that can be a nightmare, when you get into a large open space and you are left holding 5 coats while 5 other-mothers'-little-darlings vanish into the distance to explore and you can't shout loud enough for them to hear you.

with older children they are a bit more sensible but you get a larger group. and what they might not even think about doing alone they will do in spades on a school trip. ours never involve even slightly dodgy activities, and the coaches used always have seatbelts now, and only the 11-yr-olds go on a PGL holiday, but i know of other places where 8-yr-olds go away to activity centres for a week. it seems to me to show a great LACK of imagination on the part of the staff.

I must say I think you're overreacting a bit, mumsnetters. It's obviously tragic and awful when children die in accidents and even more so if lax supervision is a direct or indirect cause of that death. These events aren't very common though and school trips and journeys can be wonderful experiences for children. Surely by insisting that our children don't go or are accompanied by us every time because of a few very rare incidents- which, moreover, receive a great deal of press coverage and scare us all witless- we are cramping their style bigtime?

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There was a story in the paper yesterday about two toddlers who died in a housefire on Friday. They were being babysat by two 13 year-olds while their parents were both at work. I didn't know this but there is no minimum age for babysitters in England - perhaps there should be??? The accident was no fault of the babysitters, there was faulty wiring in the house and they tried to get upstairs to the children but were beaten back by flames, and rushed to a neighbours who tried the same but failed.
Some may say parents should use their commonsense when it comes to leaving their children with babysitters, and I agree. I know some 13 year olds may be 'old' for their age but I wouldn't leave my son with anyone under 17.
I do think there should be more guidelines, not necessarily laws though, about things like this.

It is a frightening thought about allowing our children out of the front door to even walk to school alone these days let alone go on trips - I remember distinctly how stupid my mother's attitude was when I got my first proper bike, I literally lived 6-7 minutes walk away from junior school in a tiny rural village, I obviously wanted to cycle there so I was told I would have to do a cycling proficiency test first - fair enough. The school held them regularly - then you guessed it, my mum wouldn't allow me to take my bike to school to learn and take the test because it wasn't safe....

I have to agree with both Azzie and Scummymummy - easy to do on mumsnet I know that we should take the view that they need to be allowed to take part in activities such as these and look into them in detail. I went on numerous 'adventure holidays' at the ages of around 15/16 and had a whale of a time and did lots of hiking around the three peaks etc in yorkshire. A lot of this involved - pot-holing, crossing a crevass on a pulley system (terrifying!) abseiling, canoeing, camping etc (btw I paid for most of these trips with my own saved up pocket money and a lot of begging!!) It gave me an enormous amount of new found confidence and taught me a new kind of independence (at 19 I became an overseas rep with responsibilities (sp?) for over 200 ADULTS and believe me they could get into as many decent scrapes as any child (and yes one died - though admittedly of a heart attack) they got runover frequently and had tendencies to walk through plate glass windows frequently...

What I think I am trying to say in a round about way is a) I am dreading the time when I have to make the decision for dd to go on these trips, b) I will take a deep breath and check everything out I possibly can before letting her go and c) prepare her all the time to be reasonably sensible in order to get the most out of these trips.

I should add that my natural instinct is to never let her out of my sight so that I can control any horrid forces she may come into contact with - but it is one which will be damaging for everyone long term - I know we have to let them go one day!!

But what do you do when the very parents who are supposed to be looking after children and making the right decisions for them fail totally? I whizzed out to the shop yesterday evening to get something I'd forgotten for dinner. I passed a woman in an MPV -, she had 2 children seatbelted into the front seat, the younger on the eldest's lap!!!!! The rest of the seats were empty!! I know you can't legislate against stupidity - but it makes you wonder doesn't it?

Mel, the stupidity of some people is beyond me. I am a bit of a seat belt bore I must admit. I won't let my children use a lap belt unless it's an emergency and only then with a large cushion between them and the belt.

My other whinge is about booster seats, anyone that reads this, why do we have booster seats? Don't look it up, what do you think and it's not so your kids can see out of the window! R.

My 2 eldest use booster seats (aged 3.5 & 5 yrs). They are quick, easy and very inexpensive (so you can keep extra in your boot for when giving kids' friends a lift). As mine are still young I have had to buy extra seatbelt guides to hold belts off necks (but even these were only £9.99). I too am quite horrified by the sight of children not strapped in when in the car and also by people holding tiny babies on knees in passenger seat - it makes my blood run cold. I can't believe that they haven't seen the films of crash test dummies in this day and age.