Ground Teams should stay out of the woods

[RiverAux]

From the September Safety Beacon:

Cadet was participating in an evening cadet activity when she injured her ankle walking through a wooded area. Cadet stated she stepped on a tree root and rolled her ankle off the side. Medical review determined injury to be a sprain.

Lesson Learned: Leadership should not allow activities in unknown areas where risk potential is higher. Activities performed by CAP members should be limited to activities outlined in CAP regulations, manuals, and pamphlets. If a night activity is to occur, a safety walk should be done of the area during daylight hours to view risks and help determine if activity areas are appropriate.

Okay, while this most likely was not an ES-related activity, the broad statement about not allowing activities in unknown areas is absurd.  And regarding night activities, if anything we should be instituting some night-related ground team tasks.  No, we generally don't do ground searches in the woods at night, but there are quite a few ways that we can still end up with ground teams in the woods after dark.  While our teams probably don't need to be able to navigate the Army Ranger night nav course, they should be at least somewhat comfortable doing some basic night movements. 

Of course, training for such activities should be conducted in an area that is relatively safe (no sinkholes or cliffs), finding an area devoid of tree roots isn't going to be feasible. 

Am I over-reacting?  Possibly, but it is just this sort of semi-official statement that can quickly lead to either urban myth or actual policies restricting activities that we should be doing. 

[Patterson]

You have got to be kidding me!!!!!!!

Lesson Learned: Leadership should not allow activities in unknown areas where risk potential is higher

Umm.....what?!?!?!

Asinine and poorly thought out.  They need to fire both the person that came up with that line and the person who printed that line.

If we follow that principle of thought.....we would not even leave our homes.  (granted some people don't leave their homes, but not the point I am making...)

[BillB]

Since 80% of accidents happen in the home, we should remove cadets from their homes to be safe.

[PHall]

Guys, CAP isn't the only place where Safety makes really stupid recommendations. Air Force Safety does it all the time.
Same thing with the "Risk Management" folks here at AT&T.

It seems to be part of the Safety Culture...

[Stonewall]

I am going to create a business that makes human sized bubble wrap and sell it through Vanguard to CAP parents for their cadets.  It'll be reflective, luminous and have flashing LED strobes to boot.  It'll come with a matching helmet and all.

[bosshawk]

Red strobes on one side, green on the other with a single white strobe in the center?

[Hawk200]

I am going to create a business that makes human sized bubble wrap and sell it through Vanguard to CAP parents for their cadets.  It'll be reflective, luminous and have flashing LED strobes to boot.  It'll come with a matching helmet and all.

...and within months someone will suffocate within the bubble wrap, due to not reading the instruction manual you provided or the ones printed on the device, and sue you into being a historical safety footnote.

No matter how idiot proof you make something, it only works until someone invents a better idiot.

Agree that the "recommendation" made in the "Safety beacon" doesn't belong. It implies that the leadership is at fault for one of those things that happens in this little activity called "life." It's possible to do everything right and fail or lose, that's fact. Making statements that don't acknowledge that fact breed further stupidity.

[RVT]

Red strobes on one side, green on the other with a single white strobe in the center?

Only if they are moving.  Apparently it is recommended that they do not do so.

[JC004]

ahahahaha.  Safety humor.  I enjoy making stupid safety recommendations myself. 

Last year, I had cadets putting flagging tape on just about everything in order to ensure safety. 

They put flagging tape on the orange plastic construction fence so that cadets would be more likely to see the fence.  They put flagging tape on rolls of flagging tape.  They put flagging tape on the volleyball in order to increase its safety and reduce the likelihood of a cadet getting hit by it.

My safety briefings typically include such things as: don't chew on wires, don't eat things that aren't food, don't depart a moving van...

On the matter of the incident here...tree roots are everywhere in this part of the country.  Oh well.  Next thing you know, they'll be implementing all sorts of new procedures related to tree roots. 

[jimmydeanno]

Thank you for your recommendation, safety, however, this is a command decision.

Sometimes support staff positions need to remember that they aren't commanders.   

[Pylon]

I think the most asinine sentence is the one after the bolded statement:

Activities performed by CAP members should be limited to activities outlined in CAP regulations, manuals, and pamphlets.

I'm sorry, whawhaat?  Heads up cadet leaders and cadet programs officers.  Safety spoke:  Don't go getting creative or fun with cadet activities.  If your unit or leadership academy or encampment is doing an activity that isn't already detailed and diagrammed in a CAP publication, we should be restricted from doing it.  Clearly that's irresponsible. 


That's just placing blame where absolutely no blame is due.

[RiverAux]

Well, I held back on commenting on that part of it on the off-chance that they actually were doing something pretty wacky, which knowing CAP members, is entirely possible. 

[ELTHunter]

You have to remember that a lot of times these things are brought up by folks that have (1) never worked with the cadet program, and (2) never operated outside the cockpit of an airplane.

One of the downfalls of the CAP cadet program is that we have become so prohibitive in what we can do that the Boy Scout's have more cool activities than CAP for kids to do.  Someday all we will be able to let them do is sit in safety, DDR, ML and aerospace briefings, and drill on a well lighted ans perfectly safe drill pad.

[RADIOMAN015]

I'd be interested to see how CAP cadet accident stats compare to other field type activities like the boy scouts

Although, I do agree that walking in the woods on a moon less night without adequate lighting can be dangerous.  Add teenagers into the mix, and wow!!!! :angel:

In my former life, I remember attending a course at Camp Bullis TX that included a night training exercise on a dark/cloudly moonless night.  I didn't have adequate (red) lighting and remember walking right into a small tree -- fortunately no injury.   (What was the best part of that course was flying in UH 1's at tree top level down the river, many of the attendees didn't want to fly, so I took three flights ). 

From an ES qualification standpoint, I think the right thing is to actually have an ES qualification for night (darkness) ground operations.   HOWEVER, one does have to practice and when you train there's always the possibility of an injury.

Of course if we have no operations, than we would have no injuries :angel:
RM

[JC004]

...
Lesson Learned: Leadership should not allow activities in unknown areas where risk potential is higher. Activities performed by CAP members should be limited to activities outlined in CAP regulations, manuals, and pamphlets. If a night activity is to occur, a safety walk should be done of the area during daylight hours to view risks and help determine if activity areas are appropriate.
...

Without more detail, I don't know that any of this is something from which we can all learn.  She rolled off the side of what?  The root, or a cliff?  If she rolled off the side of a mountain, that would maybe be different.

Leadership should not allow activities in unknown areas where risk potential is higher.

• Tree roots also occur in known areas.  They also occur in otherwise flat sidewalks.
• By nature, ES operations take CAP into "unknown areas."  Train as you operate.  No?  Even if you don't search at night, if you're camped or staying at a firehouse/church floor near trees after a mission, there will be roots.

Activities performed by CAP members should be limited to activities outlined in CAP regulations, manuals, and pamphlets.

• What?
• What Mike said.
• Was this activity outside regulations?  Were they paintballing? Do tree roots only pop up at unauthorized activities?

If a night activity is to occur, a safety walk should be done of the area during daylight hours to view risks and help determine if activity areas are appropriate.

• If I found a tree root on a "safety walk," I probably wouldn't have designated the area unsafe.
• Likewise, if I were conducting an ES activity and I found trees, I would have designated the area highly appropriate.

[manfredvonrichthofen]

Well if you can't walk in the woods at night you definitely can't sand bag in a flood, and you most definitely can't perform a missing person search in a flood. There goes disaster relief. Not to mention assist after an earthquake. I feel that action is needed to be taken with personnel who try to make a classroom seem unsafe, all it does is make people sarcastic about safety and make things worse for some parents letting their kids participate. Now, most of the parents of our squadron realize that everything in life has some level of risk, especially anything that is fun, so they don't mind what happens in the field so long as it isn't negligent. That is the thin that people need to realize is that we won't let anything happen do to sheer negligence. We do everything possible to ensure safety and most people do know that.

JC004, it states that she said she rolled off a tree root.

EDIT: JC004 I see what you are saying. She rolled off a root... it wasn't a cliff. A cliff would be a different story. It was a root, we all hope she heals well and fast but this is blowing it way out of proportion.

[PA Guy]

CAP's zeal to create a "culture of safety" has largely been turned into a joke with nonsense like this in the Safety Beacon.

[RiverAux]

Got to say that I'm a little surprised at the unanimity of opinion on this -- rare for CAPTalk. 

[a2capt]

This has to be an entry in the "lamest thing ever published" category.

Lets hold activities where everyone is surrounded by bubble wrap and line the place with foam.

Lame.

[EMT-83]

Make sure the bubble wrap is secured with Velcro. Otherwise, someone might get their thingy caught in the zipper.