UKC

Reports coming in of a large search underway for several groups of children taking part in a DOE expedition in bad weather conditions on the Brecons. It seems some have been located. Here's hoping for a positive outcome all round.

In reply to Trangia:

Updated - 3/4 groups found: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-36664896

In reply to SenzuBean:

Good News. All found safe and well per BBC 5 O'clock News

In reply to Trangia:

Good news. It appears they were in the Black Mountain or Western Beacons, navigation not being easy up there at the best of times. It's been chucking it down most of last night and all of today. One has to wonder why the group leader just didn't stop this morning and say we're going no-where today. I don't think even the most ardent outdoor enthusiast would have chosen a route across that ground to do today.

Shame really, probably turned the kids off walking for life.

In reply to Mark Morris:

Seconded

Or, hooked them for life? There's some tough kids out there who would want to gain the necessary skills and experience from this.

In reply to Trangia:

Hope they used their heads and utilised some of the tons of kit they are required to carry. Tent maybe! !

In reply to Mark Morris:


If they were on assessment they will have been making their own decisions. There won't have been a 'group leader' with them.

It's about independence.

In reply to SenzuBean:


From that report it would appear that the people (any mid-teen is going to go hairless at being described as a child) were in phone contact from when they couldn't work out where they were and walked off unaided whilst being spotted by chopper.

Good effort.

In reply to afshapes:


or black plastic bin liners

In reply to Trangia:

Am I missing something? Alarm raised at 1300, and all found by 1700. So 'missing' for 4 hours, whilst on the phone to teachers/MRT. Presumably with enough equipment and supplies for a week?! Obviously it's good news that they were all found quickly, but over-dramatising something which happens to everyone at some point in poor weather on the hills is surely (already, as above) going to involve the teacher or school getting blamed and make it even harder than it already is to get kids involved in anything remotely adventurous? Perhaps the BBC are just desperate for anything non-political at the moment.

In reply to Andy Say:

They operate "independently" (air quotes intentional) but are still supervised, albeit remotely

In reply to Mowglee:

It was news other than referendum, so a distraction. Old school Dof E wouldn't have allowed mobile phones. Would like to have seen the team just say no today though, it was awful from the start. That would have been judgement. Could have got worse on that plateau and it wasn't worth a slog through the bog up there. Hopefully they did just get into their tents and wait!

Hope they did enjoy it and parents don't see it as a way to point fingers of blame.

In reply to Trangia:

I was up around the Pen-Y-Fan area today and the weather was really, really rank. Plenty of CLAG and gusts impeding on walking. The only other people I saw was a military group.

Good effort for the majority of the groups to walk themselves off. I'm sure plenty of the health and safety uncultured will go mad, but outdoor education for kids is such a great thing!

In reply to Adam_Turner:

If SAS recruits can die on the Brecons in shit conditions I think the Rescue Authorities made the right call here.. Far better to over react than have another tragedy,

In reply to Trangia:

Absolutely - just for the record, it's the reporting I take issue with, not the MRT response.

In reply to Trangia:

Jonathan Gillespie, headteacher at St Albans School in Hertfordshire, said the search was sparked after two of the children fell ill.

He said the pupils were quickly found after friends of the unwell pair phoned police.

Mr Gillespie said: “Our pupils are trained to contact the police if anything happens to them, which they did after two members of our school began to feel unwell.

“The police then contacted mountain rescue teams who were able to quickly locate the pupils, who used a mobile phone app which gives a grid reference to show where they were.

“No one has been missing at any stage despite quite misleading reports contrary to that. We have 46 pupils over there in total working in small groups and all are safe and sound.

“All the pupils have been taken off the mountain and are now safe.”

In reply to Mowglee:

Dreadful reporting. Some reports of them being lost in underground caves ffs.

And we wonder why parents won't let their children out or why kids are obese.

In reply to climbwhenready:

As often as not by a teacher sitting in a mini-bus and sleeping in a local B&B.

I wonder where the remote supervisor figured in this 'incident'.

In reply to marsbar:


I bet they weren't ill at all, just didn't want to be there. Wetties!

I was up on Kinder Scout on Thursday and encountered several groups doing DoE Silver and Gold. A nice clear day, unlike the Wednesday which was windy with prolonged heavy rain. All groups I met had hiked on the Wednesday and although they moaned about it they were proud of having got through it and were looking forward to completing their DoE expeditions. It will have been a stretch for a lot of them but something they will likely remember for a very long time.

I chatted to quite a few folk I met. One turned out to be a teacher ‘checking through’ several groups on the Silver DoE. Apparently it was their ‘assessed’ i.e. not practice hike. She said there were several other teachers on the hills doing a similar job. I mentioned the Brecons rescue. She (rather sheepishly!) said it was her school that was involved. My instant reaction was “Wow! What a fantastic school that promotes and runs DoE expeditions in 2 areas at the same time.” Anyway, she said the issue in the Brecons was that one of the kids started walking a lot slower than usual, was less sure-footed and slow to respond to others. The rest of the team were concerned they might be witnessing the onset of hypothermia – and even if not then as a group they would struggle to get to the campsite. So what to do? They wanted to phone their teachers for advice but the phone they had (yes, I know they shouldn’t have phones on DoE, but maybe it was sealed in a bag for emergency use only) had no signal. But they could use it to dial 999 as apparently emergency calls pick up any network. So, bearing in mind these are 15/16 YO kids who have just finished GCSE’s and are probably inexperienced in either the hills or emergencies, they can call for help (and probably fail the DoE hike for using a phone) or soldier on in harsh conditions with an unwell team member. A big decision. They dialled 999. IMO they got it right and should be congratulated for doing so.

I passed the teacher a few hours later (now with a colleague) still waiting for a final group to come up Jacob’s Ladder. Might have been a long wait as I saw no DoE groups on my way down to Barber Booth.

In reply to PaulGraham:

Good to hear the truth not the hype.

In reply to PaulGraham:
Rather impressive.

In reply to PaulGraham:


There's no ban on the use of phones for DofE. They are accepted as useful organisational and emergency devices. BUT they are only supposed to be used for expedition use; they are not to be used for phoning home, chatting to their friends, posting on Snapchat, etc... They are also not to be used as a replacement for proper supervision in the field; supervisors must still meet the groups regularly to check on their condition.

We let our groups carry their own phones for recording purposes (photos, videos, etc), knowing that, in the event of their issued team phone not working, they could use their own phones to contact us, possibly mitigating the problem of network coverage. But we're strict about the external contact, and trust them not to. On the whole our groups live up to that trust.

Given the circumstances of the group, as you describe, I too think they did the right thing.

In reply to Trangia:


The SAS recruits died from heat-stroke. It's a rather different scenario here. But I do agree that a cautionary call-out was justified.

In reply to Jamie B:

One died earlier that year of hypothermia.