Scout leaders leading kids to certain doom

[John B]

Sorry John,

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,1201602.story

Nothin to be sorry about -- it's an ancillary article linked to the original. I knew someone would link the very thing that you did (along with the other listing deaths).

Nothing is "anti-BSA," it's an article about stupidity. If you want to lead a group, make sure that you're qualified to be a leader.

[Cookerhiker]

Yes, I have to admit it's newsworthy; it wouldn't seem right to ignore such events. My concern is it's kinda like reporting crime in that I know people who are so paranoid because their fixation on crime news prevents them from basically enjoying life. I'd hate to see the reporting of the boy scout tragedies result in less kids getting outdoors and into organizations that promote such e.g. the Scouts.

I'd like to think instead that this publicity will heighten parents' awareness when evaluating outdoor organizations and their leaders, and for such organizations to evaluate themselves regarding their capacity for safety-conscious leadership - all this without discouraging young people from getting active outdoors. But I don't know....

[FatMan]

This topic is not one that should be taken lightly. The outdoors are inherently dangerous and any scout group venturing out without the leaders knowing the difficulty and dangers of the trip is dumb, if not negligent.

BSA needs to do a better job of monitoring and recommending appropriate trips for each region of the country, where the recommendation includes suggested age, experience level, time of year, etc.

This database could easily be created by requiring a ratings report to be completed at the conclusion of each outing by the leaders. The fact in this case where most of the group turned back after just one hour, followed by the others being caught in a snow storm, shows an incredible lack of knowledge and information on the leaders part. I suspect some scout group in the past had learned a similar lesson, just without tragedy. If that information had been made available by BSA outings data base it could have saved that boy's life.

I think BSA is a fantastic organization. I was a Boy Scout, my son was a Boy Scout. But I am very concerned when I read about this tragedy. This was not an unfortunate accident that falls under "Stuff Happens". This child was put at danger by Scout Leaders that used very poor judgment.

[couscous]

Nothing is "anti-BSA," it's an article about stupidity. If you want to lead a group, make sure that you're qualified to be a leader.

The title chosen for this thread seems to imply that the death was recent, premeditated, all the scouts died and deaths are common for Boy Scout outings. More high school boys die playing football each year than from participating in scouting, but we're not likely to see a thread on WB stating "Football coaches pushing kids to certain doom".
~
The Scoutmaster did not follow the BSA rules. The other adults did not ensure that the BSA rules were followed. But had all the rules been followed and the group stayed together, the death still could have occurred when the scout stepped off the trail. Since we don't have a long rope with an adult leader on each end and have all the scouts hold onto the rope like some preschool classes when walking outside, we had the potential of a scout stepping off the trail and falling when we were at Black Rock Cliffs - Annapolis Rock - Lambs Knoll - Weverton Cliffs - or trying to shortcut the switchbacks down to Weverton Road this past July.
~
Just because I submitted to a background check, have annual physicals to confirm physical fitness, have been trained in Youth Protection, Fast Start Boy Scouting, Scoutmaster Specific Training, Outdoor Skills, Trek Safely, Climb On Safely, Safe Swim Defense, Safety Afloat, Weather Hazards, Chainsaw Safety, Fast Start Venturing etc. etc. etc. does not automatically made me a qualified leader. Common sense and experience helps most leaders anticipate potential problems and minimize their probability, but we can't create a risk free "bubble" on the road or in the woods.

[gunner76]

Lets bash High School football and cheer leading while we are at it. There are always news stories in the news about football players dying from heat stroke during a summer practice and cheerleaders ending up paralyzed from botched routines. It ends up from leadership making judgement calls to push things that later turn out to be wrong.

[berkshirebirder]

Agreed, Couscous. The title given this thread overstates the content of this particular news story. It also overstates the implication of the 30-some other boy scout deaths (the list). There are no details provided for the incidents listed, but it would appear that some were purely accidental (e.g. boy killed by falling totem pole). A good number of the deaths were from drowning--kids drown in pools and at beaches with lifeguards nearby. It's tragic, but it happens.

BSA needs to do a better job of monitoring and recommending appropriate trips for each region of the country, where the recommendation includes suggested age, experience level, time of year, etc. --Fatman

Fatman's comment is worth repeating. Scout leaders, is the decision about what hike to take made by individual pack leaders with no guidance or permission from someone higher up in the leadership?

[4eyedbuzzard]

The title chosen for this thread seems to imply that the death was recent, premeditated, all the scouts died and deaths are common for Boy Scout outings. More high school boys die playing football each year than from participating in scouting, but we're not likely to see a thread on WB stating "Football coaches pushing kids to certain doom".

True. But this is a hiking site. I guaranty that football fatalities get similar treatmant at websites devoted to discussing football. I'm pretty sure many programs including Pop Warner, etc have all been thoroughly bashed at times - and likely deservedly so.

Common sense and experience helps most leaders anticipate potential problems and minimize their probability, but we can't create a risk free "bubble" on the road or in the woods.

No, but we do try to minimize risks. And in most of these cases, the exact opposite occured - the risks were amplified due to negligent behavior / decisions by adult leaders.

[beakerman]

When I hear poeple say that say BSA trains its leaders wrong or poorly I always fall back on the wonderful response of "come show me how it's supposed to be done.."

Everybody is a perfect monday morning quarterback. Yes in almost every case when a scout gets seriously injured there was a mistake made by the adult...in almost every one of those cases it was a mistake in judgement about the abilities of the scout to handle the situation they are in. I'm not making excuses for these tragic deaths...the fault lies entirely with the adult leaders on site at the time. Pushing through on a trail that is hairy to begin with ( the one at Yosimite is the one with the chain that goes along the razorback right?) when there is 2 feet of snow with tired scouts is jsut plain stupid.

It happens though there's no amount of training that will keep people from doing it. How many hikers die or are seriously injured during the course of a year? As lonewolf likes to say: "its just walking" right? In almost every case they pushed beyond their experience level and paid the price when things hit the fan.

So what are you going to do banish the BSA because a few adults made serious mistakes? Well lets banish the Catholic church because we all know those priests are just molesting every boy in the parish! I mean with as many times as we hear about it it must be every single one of them right? Or maybe we should put all minorities in jail because we know most of the folks injail are minorities anyway so there must be a reason for that right? Same mentality.

So if you don't have something constructive to offer about how to avoid these incidents then sit down and shut up...its that simple.

Oh yeah I'm a BSA Scout Master...have been for a years. In each one of these cases I saw immediately where they went wrong...many of them multiple times...sometimes things as simple as enforcing the boys to stay on the trail and together will keep them out of trouble.

[beakerman]

berkshire

it depends on what level you are dealing with but in every case the scout leader is supposed to be with in the confines of "the guide to safe scouting" which has almost every activity known to man and at waht age a boy is supposed to beable to handle these activities. Its a set of guidelines that we are suppsoed to follow along with our training about conditions and individual abilities of the scouts.

In the Boy Scouts the boys decide when and where for the most part. Adults are there to guide and advise. To help ensure proper preparations are made. In every one of these cases that guidance was not there or was counter to what our training is suppsoed to tell us. Take the case at hand: 12 year old boy should be able to make the hike uyp the ridgeline in normal conditions. that is what the book says and under normal conditions he probably would be able to do so. However there were not normal conditions. The boys were tired already and the trail had 2 feet of snow. Either one of which is a sign for a no-go. But they pressed on and then decided to turn back...more mistakes followed. Leaving the trail and getting strung out along the trail. If you cant see everyone in those situations you can't supervise and enforece stayig on the trail...especially with inexperienced scouts.

I could go on but my fingers are tired. The problem is not lack of rules the problem is failure to follow them by a few individuals. Its like gun control..there are already laws saying it's illegal to kill someone...why should it be any different if they did it with a gun? the person is jsut as dead becasue someone didn't follow a basic rule so a nother rule would accomplish what?

[mister krabs]

Yes, I have to admit it's newsworthy; it wouldn't seem right to ignore such events.

Neither story is newsworthy. The first story is 2 and a half years old with no newly uncovered points. The incidents in the second article linked were several years old. They were newsworthy when they happened, but a tragic accident that happened 8 years ago does not even provide context to a tragic and unrelated accident that happened 2 and a half years ago, which in turn is not newsworthy today.

[canoehead]

Go ahead and take a look at what we do for training in the BSA. This is just one part of a fantastic program for our youth. We've been doing it since 1910 = 100 years.
http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/...y/GSS/toc.aspx

So if you have the skill sets necessary to help out with a troop or cub pack then do it..
We can always use more volunteers.

[weary]

.....Fatman's comment is worth repeating. Scout leaders, is the decision about what hike to take made by individual pack leaders with no guidance or permission from someone higher up in the leadership?

It's a question, not a comment. My answer to the question is, "I hope so." Leaders need training and demonstrated experience. But a bureaucracy of permission-making should not be required whenever a trained and experienced leader wants to take a group of kids for a walk in the woods.

[4eyedbuzzard]

I believe it is the pattern and nature of the deaths taken in its totality that is newsworthy to many. That many don't consider it so is certainly their right. That others disagree is theirs. Taken in its totality, there are too many similarities in poor leadership behavior displayed that are common to many of the deaths - a pattern of poor leadership, that many are interested in exploring and discussing.

No one has implied that scouting doesn't have a large positive impact. But no one is immune from criticism, especially when children die. Many of these deaths occured directly due to adult leaders failing to follow established guidelines, breaking rules, making poor decisions, and failure to use plain old common sense. Many people would like to know what BSA has done / is doing since these accidents occured to address the leadership failures that led or contributed to these deaths.

Obviously, some wish it all would quietly go away without further embarrassment or criticism of BSA. The world doesn't work like that.

[dcmidnight]

If I was to remove the human element from it and look at it from a pure numbers standpoint - and I'm a numbers guy by trade - I see nothing terribly newsworthy here.

A little over six scouts or scout leaders have died per year in the last 5 years? Out of 3.9 million or so scouts + scout leaders?

I'm not big on guarantees but I'd bet that if you look at any other of 100's after school activities, extra curriculars, sports etc the death rate is many many times that.

I was a boy scout for many years and a volunteer for a year after that. I had some great leaders and some complete morons. But at least the morons took the time to volunteer with these kids and I give them credit for that. Also, just look at the people on WB or your friends in general. You probably have at least 1 or two that make bad decisions in the outdoors on occasion and some repeatedly. All I see here is that once in a blue moon an adult volunteer makes a mistake in judgement. I think its wrong, its awful, its heartbreaking - but even for people that volunteer to teach kids and young adults I cant expect them to NEVER make a mistake or use bad judgement. We are still all human after all.

So again, its tragic and I never want to see ANYONE die in the outdoors - but the numbers we are talking about are so small that I cant consider this newsworthy. Well that and this story in the "news"paper is almost 3 years old.

[berkshirebirder]

a bureaucracy of permission-making should not be required whenever a trained and experienced leader wants to take a group of kids for a walk in the woods. -Weary

It's really not "a walk in the woods" we're talking about in the context of the Yosemite accident.

Someone above said the boys themselves decide where to hike. That may not be the typical arrangement, but "How does BSA react after judgment-related accidents to try to prevent future ones?" is a valid and important question.

[mister krabs]

I believe it is the pattern and nature of the deaths taken in its totality that is newsworthy to many. That many don't consider it so is certainly their right. That others disagree is theirs. Taken in its totality, there are too many similarities in poor leadership behavior displayed that are common to many of the deaths - a pattern of poor leadership, that many are interested in exploring and discussing.

I don't disagree, but am curious. What is it about this pattern of events, the most recent of which is almost three years old that makes this news?

News is the communication of selected[1] information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.

It's speculation either way that this is the work of someone with an anti-BSA agenda or not. Neither argument is readily dismissed.

[dcmidnight]

It's really not "a walk in the woods" we're talking about in the context of the Yosemite accident.

Someone above said the boys themselves decide where to hike. That may not be the typical arrangement, but "How does BSA react after judgment-related accidents to try to prevent future ones?" is a valid and important question.

I 'm not sure I agree that this question can even be asked or answered. How can you prevent judgement related accidents? I dont think you can.

You can give 1.1 million adult volunteers all the certifications and all the training in the world and people are *still* going to still occasionally have errors in judgement.

[dcmidnight]

I don't disagree, but am curious. What is it about this pattern of events, the most recent of which is almost three years old that makes this news?

News is the communication of selected[1] information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.

It's speculation either way that this is the work of someone with an anti-BSA agenda or not. Neither argument is readily dismissed.

Agreed. Nothing about this story struck me as newsworthy. Two of the big "stories" he quoted are from Feb 2008 and 1991 - so something that is almost 20 years old. Its not as if - at least it does not appear that - there was a recent string of deaths that brought about this article.

[mister krabs]

We can all stop talking about this. It's made FARK

[couscous]

Each troop makes the decision of where they want to hike. They then file a tour permit with their local BSA Council for approval at least two week prior to the trip so there is also a record of who, what, where & when. Trips over 500 miles must be submitted at least a month in advance and approved by both the local Council and the Regional Service Center.

How does BSA react after judgment-related accidents to try to prevent future ones?

One of the ways the BSA reacted has been by increasing the training requirements of the adult leaders on the tour permits. After some weather related deaths it became mandatory that one adult participating on each trip has Weather Hazards training. Most BSA-related deaths have nothing to do with hiking, but one death is one too many.

Our scouts can choose where they want to hike, but as adults we review the potential weather conditions - terrain profile - trail maps - water options - contingency plans in case of injuries - etc. with the scouts to make sure they are physically prepared and properly equipped.