In reply to BeckyOfTheLake:
Becky, I apologise that I have had to edit your post from the original; however your post generated many questions in my mind about the incident and your perception of it.
"the climber's parter [sic] took about a while to climb down and get to her - the other 4 people in their group were seemingly unaware of the situation for sometime [sic]."
You bring up the rate at which the partner down-climbed to the injured party. Is this relevant, or added as an attempt to further the view of incompetence you portray. I offer the opinion that it is better that the partner got there uninjured, to assist the situation, rather than rush and become a casualty.
The other 4 people in the group, were these people actually with the climber who fell, on the same route? Were they in the same climbing team? Or by group do you mean that they shared transport from the same university and were elsewhere on the hill/ on other routes that day? If they were in the same area, do you have any thoughts on why they might have been unaware?
"The group we encountered (a group of 6 Uni students from London) were completely unprepared for a day out on the hill.
No suitably experienced or qualified leader,"
How did you measure this, or is this based upon your personal opinion? In addition the question of the relevance of qualifications has been done to death in this thread and others already.
"no charged up mobile phones, "
Is this in the climbing team, or the group of 6 as a whole?
"no decent head torches,"
Does this imply that they had headtorches you deemed unsuitable or that they had none at all? Again is this in the climbing team, or the group of 6 as a whole?
"unsuitable footwear, "
Are you referring to the whole group, the climber etc? Was this the case for all the group members?
"broken crampons hanging off their beltloops,"
My interpretation here is that they have identified a piece of equipment is faulty and have therefore taken it off their boots rather than proceed with it.
"unsuitable clothing, "
As you referring to the whole group? Was this the case for all the group members?
"incorrectly fitting harnesses (that hadn't been put on properly anyway),"
As you referring to the whole group? Was this the case for all the group members?
no emergency shelter, etc,... etc.
The fallen climber wasn't wearing crampons (although these might have peeled off her bendy boots and could have been further up the crag) and she wasn't roped up either - from what I gather she didn't have any winter experience.
The conditions on Saturday in the Lakes didn't really lend themselves to gullies either - rock hard ice with powder snow wafting about on top)
Is this in your professional opinion, or a subjective observation?
"It took Patterdale M.R. and the RN Heli about two hours to get to the girl who was eventually winched off the... mountain."
With a 40min flight time for the helicopter from base are your timings of the arrival of the helicopter accurate?
"Did the group (who were in absolute clip) learn any lessons?
I'm not sure, they walked off and pretty much left one of their own behind with a sprained ankle who I took pity on and gave a walking pole to!"
Surely the time that they will learn lessons is after an analysis of the event, not necessarily minutes after the completion of the evacuation of a casualty in the heat of the moment.
"I googled the club this morning and discovered they had someone winched of a mountain crag in Wales in February too!!!! "
It is apparent from another poster that this is not the case.
"Should this Uni club be shut down whilst they are taught some essential skills and drills?"
In my opinion this would be reactionary, without clarification of some of the points you present above.
"Who is responsible for the safety of the students that are given minibusses [sic] and accomodation [sic] for expeditions and then let loose and allowed to go onto the mountain playground with crampons and axes?"
As has been discussed above, the responsibility lies with the individual as with other BMC affiliated clubs. In my experience students hire minibuses either from their university or external companies and I’m not clear what the relevance of ‘accomodation [sic] for expeditions’ has.
"I am all for people getting out, having an adventure and enjoying the hills but surely a climbing club should know better than this and cannot keep up with peeling its members off mountains for the Helicopters [sic] to collect."
That is very gracious of you, further, it is apparent from the earlier poster that this is an isolated incident for this club.
"Should they be made to go on MLTs (or similar) and First Aid courses for basic knowledge and instruction?"
This presumes that they haven’t attended such courses, and I refer to my previous question asking how you quantified their experience or qualifications.
"What are your views? Should I write to the Uni concerned with a strongly penned letter or will they learn their lesson on this one"
If writing to the university will help you achieve closure in this instance then go for it. If however in answer to the questions I have raised above it is apparent that your OP is full of generalisations and assumptions about the organisation of the club it might be worth considering if your strongly penned letter will be as effective as you want it to be.
I raise the latter point becomes it seems that during the incident you must have spent a lot of time finding out the background of the those involved and checking the contents of their rucksacks to achieve a position informed enough to be willing to publish it.
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