Tragedy On The Ski Slopes
Schools go out of their way to provide all manner of interesting opportunities for the children in their tutelage. Trips are proposed with a view to exposing children to different learning and recreational situations to enhance the educational process and to inject a little bit of excitement in the school day. Stock permission forms are taken home by students to be read by their parents, and signed, permitting their children to take part in school activities outside the normal day-to-day classroom tedium.
Parents are also expected to sign waivers, when they permit their child to accompany their friends and co-students on these jaunts outside the classroom. While the school board in question and the school's administration and teaching staff promise to do everything in their power to protect and guide the children out of harm's way, the parents are asked to indicate their trust by signing the responsibility waiver. Parents are also invited to accompany children on these trips, as chaperones.
Without doubt, there are never enough adults present on trips, wherever they take place, to adequately keep tab on all the children under their care. Accidents will, and do occur. And they often result in tragedies. Not all tragedies can be prevented. Children are taken out to areas where they can indulge happily in winter-time sports like tobogganing, sledding, ice-skating, skiing. And children, to ensure they have a survivable opportunity, are urged to wear protective helmets.
Helmets are such a good idea as a way to aid in preventing catastrophic head injuries that a study released in the Canadian Medical Association Journal asserts that when skiing or snowboarding there is a significant risk reduction of 35% with the use of helmets. Statistics also inform that tragic accidents resulting in death are rare. Of the 12.3-million skier visits in Canada in 2005-2006, there were 138 head injuries requiring hospitalization.
Those are comforting odds. Put another way, someone who skies 20 winter days annually has a lifetime chance of dying from a ski-related head injury of one in 23,500. Favourably compared to the lifetime odds of dying in a vehicle crash, at roughly one in 250. (?!!) But statistics are mere numbers, cold hard facts that may or may not be quite accurate. That rare accident that results in a death is a reality, an emotional, not a rational catastrophe that should not happen.
But it did to an eleven-year-old girl who attended a Perth elementary school in the Upper Canada District School Board. She, along with other students from her school went on a ski trip with teachers and parent volunteers to the Calabogie Peaks Resort for a day of fun and recreation. The girl had skied previously, she was wearing a helmet, there were ski instructors available. Somehow, the girl skied down a slope, one of many, from beginner to expert runs, and went directly into a tree.
Her injuries were fatal. First aid was provided on site, she was airlifted to Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, and there was pronounced dead. There is no moral to this story.
Parents are also expected to sign waivers, when they permit their child to accompany their friends and co-students on these jaunts outside the classroom. While the school board in question and the school's administration and teaching staff promise to do everything in their power to protect and guide the children out of harm's way, the parents are asked to indicate their trust by signing the responsibility waiver. Parents are also invited to accompany children on these trips, as chaperones.
Without doubt, there are never enough adults present on trips, wherever they take place, to adequately keep tab on all the children under their care. Accidents will, and do occur. And they often result in tragedies. Not all tragedies can be prevented. Children are taken out to areas where they can indulge happily in winter-time sports like tobogganing, sledding, ice-skating, skiing. And children, to ensure they have a survivable opportunity, are urged to wear protective helmets.
Helmets are such a good idea as a way to aid in preventing catastrophic head injuries that a study released in the Canadian Medical Association Journal asserts that when skiing or snowboarding there is a significant risk reduction of 35% with the use of helmets. Statistics also inform that tragic accidents resulting in death are rare. Of the 12.3-million skier visits in Canada in 2005-2006, there were 138 head injuries requiring hospitalization.
Those are comforting odds. Put another way, someone who skies 20 winter days annually has a lifetime chance of dying from a ski-related head injury of one in 23,500. Favourably compared to the lifetime odds of dying in a vehicle crash, at roughly one in 250. (?!!) But statistics are mere numbers, cold hard facts that may or may not be quite accurate. That rare accident that results in a death is a reality, an emotional, not a rational catastrophe that should not happen.
But it did to an eleven-year-old girl who attended a Perth elementary school in the Upper Canada District School Board. She, along with other students from her school went on a ski trip with teachers and parent volunteers to the Calabogie Peaks Resort for a day of fun and recreation. The girl had skied previously, she was wearing a helmet, there were ski instructors available. Somehow, the girl skied down a slope, one of many, from beginner to expert runs, and went directly into a tree.
Her injuries were fatal. First aid was provided on site, she was airlifted to Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, and there was pronounced dead. There is no moral to this story.
Labels: Health, Ontario, Peculiarities
posted by Pieface @ 7:11 PM
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