What is a crisis?

A variety of different types of incidents can cause a crisis within outdoor education and adventure tourism organizations. A crisis is any situation where normal operations are no longer possible. This could be any threat to the reputation or bottom line of an organization, an incident that causes severe disruption of normal operations, or a situation that causes a breach of faith with key stakeholders. While we would like to believe that all incidents are foreseeable and preventable, there remains enough uncertainty in outdoor learning that crisis incidents do occur.

Most staff members of outdoor learning and guiding programs will spend their whole career without experiencing a fatality, and for them, accident management remains a hypothetical planning process. Time is spent training in planning for and the prevention of potential incidents, and staff are prepared through first aid training to respond to relatively minor events. While the likelihood of catastrophic program failure is low, it does remain, and this is borne out by the very occasional, but very severe event. Dealing with these crisis events are outside the experience of most outdoor organizations, but knowledge of what to expect, along with a detailed structure of what to do during and after, can help.

While some crisis events include single or multiple fatalities, others revolve around such hazards as fuel spills and exposure to other hazardous substances, pandemics (as we have learned all too well), foodborne illness, missing persons, lodge and facility-related incidents such as fire or norovirus outbreaks, or human-wildlife conflicts. A critical incident plunges an operator from normal into chaos in an instant. It is too late to start planning at that point, so actions and roles need to be pre-determined and pre-planned. The outdoor communities are expert planners and competent responders, and this section is intended to provide tools to assist with the post-incident recovery stage.

The four stages of emergency response in the risk management cycle are mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery (HeliCat Canada, 2019). This chapter is primarily concerned with the last two stages of response and recovery. Holistic discussions of the first two are well covered by other chapters in this outdoor learning book. Preemptive risk management (those activities intended to prevent, plan for, and reduce the severity of incidents) generally fall into mitigation and preparedness activities. Post-incident management activities generally fall into the response and recovery stages of the risk management cycle.

1. Mitigation: Preventing future emergencies and reducing their impact on the organization. Mitigation activities include any activities aimed at preventing an emergency, reducing the chance of an emergency happening, or reducing the damaging effects of unavoidable emergencies. Guides meetings, hazard assessment, personal protective equipment, and buying insurance are all mitigation activities.
2. Preparedness: Preparing to handle an emergency. Preparedness activities include plans or preparations made to help response, rescue, and post-incident management operations. Compiling emergency response plans, purchasing emergency response equipment, conducting staff training, compiling emergency contact lists, and establishing emergency equipment caches are examples of preparedness activities.
3. Response: Responding efficiently and safely to an emergency. Response activities include actions taken to save lives and prevent further property damage in an emergency. Response is putting preparedness plans into action and takes place during an emergency. Responding to an avalanche, searching for a missing student, dealing with the media, and communicating with the family are all response activities.
4. Recovery: Returning to normal (or a new normal) after an emergency. Recovery includes actions taken to return to a normal or even a better situation following an emergency incident. There are several recovery activities that take place immediately after or during the latter phases of the Response stage. Collecting witness statements, conducting a snow profile for record keeping purposes, debriefing staff, compiling guest and incident documentation, and providing staff and guests with critical incident stress debriefing are all examples of immediate (proximate) actions. After the immediate recovery, those activities which follow can continue for an extended period of time (months or even years in many cases). Conducting an internal accident investigation, maintaining a relationship with families and guests, working with insurers, investigators, coroners, and lawyers, and managing potential claims are all longer-term recovery activities.

Levels of Incident Response

While there are many different descriptive models of response levels, the following is a simple model used by much of the Canadian backcountry skiing sector (HeliCat Canada, 2019).  These include three levels: internal, external, and integrated, identified by the colours green, yellow, and red respectively as shown in Figure 1.

Response

The primary responsibility in managing an incident is to care for the injured guest(s) and staff. The impact of an incident may affect others beyond those who were involved firsthand in the event. It is essential to ensure the needs of those around the injured are met, conduct a debrief, make counselling available, and be aware of any symptoms that may emerge as signs of critical incident stress. Finally, bear in mind that responders and investigators themselves may need care and support. Here are some suggested actions to aid with response to an incident.

• Keep calm and think actions through.
• Ensure the injured party is cared for and that appropriate and timely on-scene response is in place. Respond quickly and professionally.
• Implement an appropriately scaled Incident Command System to manage the event.
• Confirm the details of the incident and do not act on unconfirmed information.
• Conduct debriefing sessions with staff and guests separately.
• Notify proper authorities as required (police, insurer, lawyer, Provincial Occupational Health and Safety agency, and your organization’s Executive team).
• Plan the relationship with the next of kin, such as who will contact them, the level of information to be provided, and the logistical assistance to get them to the location of the patient. Assign the next of kin a contact person and provide regular updates.
• Communicate confirmed information with staff. Discuss the incident or causes of the incident only with designated staff, and resist the urge to blame or find fault.
• Activate your business’s media plan. Ensure all requests or questions are channelled through a designated Public Information Spokesperson. You may need to seek legal advice before any information is released to media or the public.
• Additional staff meetings and debriefing sessions with professional counsellors may be required.
• Document and photograph all stages of the response. Compile all related documents including registration forms, signed waivers, incident reports, ICS forms, Occupational Health and Safety, insurance forms, and witness statements.
• Follow up with your insurer regarding whether their insurance adjuster or lawyer needs to be involved. They will lead any resulting investigation.
• Under no circumstances are any employees to make comments to the media. Please refer all inquiries to the designated Public Information Spokesperson within your organization.

Incident Command System

While most operator incidents will require a Level 1 or Level 2 response and be handled “in-house,” larger incidents will require accessing outside resources and integrating any already carried out activities with outside response agencies such as the police, local SAR Groups, Provincial emergency management agency, Parks Canada, ambulance services, and fire departments. This will also be the case when an operator provides aid to an external incident managed by one of these agencies. Responding to emergency situations requires an organized management system, and the Incident Command System (ICS) is commonly used in North America. Organized response agencies are likely to be using terminology and management systems from the Incident Command System (ICS).

ICS is a standardized on-site management system designed to enable effective, efficient incident management by integrating a combination of facilities, equipment, personnel, procedures, and communications operating within a common organizational structure. Inability to integrate smoothly into the ICS communications, command, span of control, and accountability easily fail. There has been a strong initiative by Canadian response agencies to move to ICS, and it is important that outdoor program providers and adventure tourism businesses can integrate with these agencies.

Pre-planned response resources

As part of your organization’s preparedness, many elements of an organized response can be prepared. This may include:

• Management team personnel
• Internal and external response resources
• Communication plans
• Pre-written news releases
• Occupational health and safety contacts
• Critical Incident Stress Debriefing resources
• Response toolkits
• Response checklists

Documentation

During litigation arising from an incident, all relevant documentation is “discoverable,” is not protected by “privilege,” and may need to be disclosed to the litigant’s representative lawyers. Nothing is confidential, including internal reports and memos, social media, and staff emails. It is important to maintain objectivity and professionalism in all incident-related documentation. Subjective comments and opinions have no place in incident documentation.

Procedural protocols about what entails appropriate incident management, reporting, documentation, and interaction and communication with guests and the public need to be established by each business and reiterated in staff training. Remembering that any claim from an incident could happen years in the future, actions taken by the operator during and immediately after the event may not have the advice of insurers or lawyers, and meticulous care regarding documentation content, record keeping, and presentation is necessary.

Pre-incident Documentation

Outdoor program operators have extensive pre-incident documentation. This may include registration and booking information, marketing materials, website content, emails with guests, staff training materials, waivers, safety talks, risk management plans, snow/water level/weather observation data, guide/instructor meeting minutes, trip plans, equipment and maintenance logs, guide/instructor field books, insurance policies, staff training program, staff CV’s and certifications, and general business records.

After an incident, there is large reliance on these materials, and they need to be compiled and kept indefinitely. There will be an intense analysis of these materials during investigations and claims. In the case of a fatal incident, each province has a provincial death investigation system – either through a coroner or medical examiner – and police are the investigators. Expect documents to be seized and whatever is in the record to become an official part of the file. Additionally, in the case of litigation, expert witnesses will also conduct investigations and scrutinize all documentation and operating procedures. If guests are involved in the crisis, and you are using an electronic waiver platform, you should immediately copy all waivers from the site for all guests associated with the trip and maintain these records. If the guests have also signed waivers for earlier trips with your organization, you should maintain copies of these as well because multiple signed copies are better than one.

Post-Incident Documentation

This includes anything produced during the response as well as anything produced after the event. This may include accident site diagrams, guide field book notes, witness statements, recorded guest statements, photographs and video, GoPro video (get this from guests immediately), guest group lists and contact details, social media postings, staff emails, internal memos, incident reports, press releases, internal investigation reports, external investigation reports, incident management forms, correspondence with guests or family, insurers, and other businesses, marketing materials, and correspondence within your organization. All this needs to be collected and retained.

Post-Incident Management

Post-Incident Investigations

Crisis incidents may require various forms of data collection and investigation. It is recommended that operators have one senior person responsible for being the liaison in this process. In a smaller business, this will likely be an owner. In a large firm, this will be a senior manager. There are three primary types of investigations following an incident: in-house analysis and data collection, regulatory investigations (worker injuries), and litigation investigations.

In-house analysis and data collection is necessary to collect and protect salient facts about the incident. This should focus on the collection of records, documentation, witness statements, video, correspondence, and incident reports. Since a business should inform their insurance broker of any accident immediately, at that same time, they may also ask for advice from the broker about the next steps in the investigation process. The broker will be able to help implement a response strategy and provide legal and expert contacts as necessary. In the event of a serious incident, the broker will contact the insurer, who may assign a lawyer or adjuster, or other outside experts to become involved.

To reiterate an earlier point, subjective comments and opinions have no place in incident documentation and care needs to be taken that resulting reports should be approached as fact-finding and not fault-finding exercises. Personal opinions of staff should not be presented. Often, the most important stage for information gathering about an incident is the first 24 hours – guests are willing to make witness statements with greater accuracy, video footage and photographs can be acquired, and things like avalanche start-zones, river water-level analyses, weather analyses, and fact finding is most effective.

At this point, the business should follow the following steps:

• Gather information about what happened in the incident. Collect factual, objective, and non-judgmental information.
• Debrief staff and guests and collect witness statements, photographs, and video.
• Contact insurers to inform them of the incident.
• Gather and store all related pre-incident and post-incident documentation (as described above).
• Activate a plan to manage media, guest, and family interaction going forward.
• Review business operations as necessary.
• Communicate clearly and often with the insurance broker, lawyer, or adjuster, if they are assigned, regarding the management of potential claims from the incident.

Regardless of the injury or near miss, the investigative process begins as follows:

• secure, photograph, and document the scene,
• collect information about what happened, and
• identify and establish the sequence of events.

Regulatory investigations

These are prescribed by provincial or federal statutes or regulations, such as an incident investigation required under a provincial Worker’s Compensation Act when a worker is injured. These are conducted by the regulatory body. For injuries to workers, and in the case of some regulatory investigations, the operator must also:

• determine the cause(s),
• recommend and implement corrective actions, and
• complete and submit the report to their provincial Occupational Health and Safety agency.

Although Occupational Health and Safety regulations exist in the different provinces, for the most part, the expectations are similar in the different jurisdictions. As an example of content related to one agency’s expectations, the British Columbia Worker’s Compensation Act (Kings Printer, 2019) was amended, and new investigation requirements were created. It states the following:

If a worker is injured or, if nobody was hurt but there was potential for serious injury to a worker (close calls), the employer must conduct a preliminary and full investigation into the incident.

The preliminary investigation must be completed within 48 hours of the incident. It focuses on what is being done immediately to ensure a similar incident does not re-occur and to prevent injury to more workers. Interim corrective actions must be applied if any are identified at this stage.

The full investigation is a more detailed examination of the circumstances that determines an accident’s cause (or causes) and factors which may have contributed to the incident and injuries. The full investigation must be completed within 30 days of the incident and a copy of final, corrective actions, and their implementation submitted to WorkSafeBC.

The Occupational Health and Safety Regulation was also amended to clarify the role of Worker Representatives or Health and Safety Committee members. These duties include:

• Viewing the scene of the incident with the persons carrying out the investigation.
• Providing advice to the persons carrying out the investigation, respecting the methods used to carry out the investigation, the scope of the investigation, or any other aspect of the investigation.
• Assisting the persons carrying out the investigation with gathering information relating to the investigation.
• Assisting the persons carrying out the investigation with analyzing the information gathered during the investigation.
• Assisting the persons carrying out the investigation in identifying any corrective actions necessary to prevent recurrence of similar incidents.

This increased level of participation is intended to lead to improved outcomes in any investigation. In British Columbia, if you are a smaller operator with fewer than nine employees, it is not necessary to have the same level of worker participation, but smaller operators are encouraged to seek input from staff.

An employer’s requirement to notify their provincial Occupational Heath and Safety agency varies by the type of the incident and is different from reporting injuries related to claims. If there is an injury on the job, the worker’s employer still must complete various report of injury forms, but this does not satisfy an employer’s need to immediately report certain incidents. See your provincial Workers Compensation Act for specific requirements.

Litigation Investigations

During litigation arising from an incident, investigations are necessary when there is concern that an incident may lead to court action. These are directed by the insurer and their lawyer and conducted by highly credible subject-matter experts because they will become expert witnesses during legal action.

The insurer may hire adjusters, expert consultants, and lawyers. At this point, the insurer has the responsibility and authority to defend the claim as they determine appropriate, and strategy is determined with the insurer’s lawyer. Note, this is not your organization’s corporate lawyer, and this lawyer will generally determine defence strategy from this point forward. Other than the deductible on your policy, these costs are generally included in your insurance.

A business needs to be clear what costs are applied against their deductible and what is paid for by the insurer. Costs incurred by the business up to this point are not likely to be applied against the deductible (for example, for in-house analysis, data collection, or other associated business costs).

Securing and Documenting the Scene

The information gathered at the scene of an incident might be required as part of a court case or regulatory investigation that may not begin until months or years after the event. Record everything, as details that may seem insignificant at the time could be of vital importance to help determine causation or for a legal defence at a later stage. Initially, evidence at the scene may be obscured or may be disturbed by rescue efforts. Site photos of the scene at the time of the incident can be valuable in establishing facts, including identifying personnel and witnesses at the scene.

While the priority is to care for the injured, it is important to take photos and make rough sketches as quickly as possible due to the likelihood of changes in weather and snow conditions, as well as the loss of daylight later in the day. The following are some things to consider when documenting the scene of an incident:

• The exact location of the incident should be marked until it can be measured and recorded.
• Any physical evidence at the scene, such as hazards and obstacles, should be identified for examination later.
• Photos showing the exact location of equipment at the scene should be taken, and the condition of equipment at the scene should be documented. It may be necessary to tag and decommission any equipment involved.
• Care should be taken to avoid moving or substantially changing the physical scene until all agencies and investigators are satisfied with the record of the site.
• When possible, the footwear the injured party was wearing at the time of an incident involving a slip, trip or fall should be documented and photographed. Determining if the footwear was appropriate for the weather conditions, location, activities being undertaken is a viable defence in the event of a lawsuit.

Where the incident is related to a location or premises, as in the case of a slip, trip or fall, there is often a gap between the time of the incident and the moment when company staff are made aware that the incident has occurred. Often, by the time the investigation is initiated, the conditions have changed, and the exact location may be difficult to determine. In these cases, it is advised that photos be taken in the direction that the injured party was travelling, along with close-ups of the surface condition.

Photographing the Scene

The number of photos taken at an incident scene will vary, but you can never have too many. Take as many as possible. Do NOT delete any photos taken. Reviewing the photos at the scene before leaving will allow you to re-take any images that are blurred or unclear due to angle, etc.

Log the date, time, location, and photographer’s name prior to starting to take the photos, this can be done by snapping a picture of a sheet of paper with the information or noted in a field book. When photos are completed, note the time again. When possible, keep photos free of equipment not related to the incident, unless they are being used specifically to show incident location or relative size and distances.

Guests may have captured photos or video footage of an incident, the response efforts, or even activities prior to the incident. If so, the investigator should ask if they may have a copy, although the guest can refuse. In the event of a police force, coroner, or WorkSafeBC investigation, a guest may be compelled to provide the footage.

Information Gathering

Witness Statements

Witnesses to the event should be interviewed and statements taken from anyone with first-hand knowledge of an incident. In some cases, the responsibility for this will fall with police; however, even minor incidents require the collection of information from a wide range of people connected to the event. The sooner a witness can be interviewed, the better their recollection and more accurate their statement will be. When witnesses are contacted immediately and the reason for the interview request is clearly explained, it is likely they will take the time to participate.

Most witnesses are cooperative, especially if the investigator approaches them with respect and recognizes that they are giving up valuable personal time. Some witnesses may consider the interview an imposition and become impatient and uncooperative. This may also be their reaction to witnessing a traumatic situation; the request for a prompt interview must be balanced against the wellbeing of the witness. If it is not possible to interview the witness immediately following an incident, get their full name and permanent address so the individual can be contacted at a later date.

Where a minor is involved as a witness, the parent or guardian has a right to be present or to refuse the interview. The presence of the parent may help or hinder the witness’s recall, and the investigator should use their judgment to determine whether the interview is worthwhile. Witnesses can be interviewed at the scene of the incident. This is most convenient for the witness and may prove most informative for the investigator, as witnesses are able to point out specific locations or items and can relate information about the scene that they may otherwise have difficulty remembering or qualifying.

In many cases, the interview will have to be conducted at a lodge or office. Ensure it is a comfortable and quiet environment where the interview will not be interrupted. When possible, separate the witness you are interviewing from friends or family members. This process reduces distractions and helps preserve the integrity of the witness’s recollection of the incident.

Record Keeping

The investigator must compile information that helps paint a picture of the day and time of the incident itself. In complex cases, you may require logbooks, reports, and other supporting documentation to establish a timeline of the days or even weeks leading up to the incident. Senior management should actively supervise all record keeping. Records should be checked periodically for extraneous narrative comments and acceptable completion, including dates and the full names of all staff completing the form.

Records should be filed in a systematic and controlled manner where they can be accessed later. These records may become evidence, and they will reflect the company’s professionalism, due diligence, and general standard of operation. The following is a non-exhaustive list of relevant records that may be used as evidence during an investigation:

• Waivers
• Registration forms
• Rental forms
• Guide logs
• Guide meeting notes
• Internal investigation reports
• Email and other correspondence
• Avalanche and InfoEx data
• Program activity planning documentation
• Incident report forms
• Weather reports/conditions
• Equipment operating logs
• Equipment pre-start checklists
• Equipment maintenance logs
• Repair work orders
• Injury and first aid reports
• Guide CVs

Critical Incident Stress Management

In the delivery of outdoor programs, many people will at some point experience dangerous situations caused by nature, mechanical failures, or people. Often, people will fully recover from those dangerous situations. But sometimes they don’t. Critical incidents are powerful negative events that can potentially create a significant and strong physiological response at the time of the incident, or later. Critical incident stress is a common reaction to these events.

A critical incident stress debriefing is an opportunity for those directly and indirectly involved in an event to talk about it individually or within a group with a trained peer-support person or mental health professional. Critical incident stress management includes crisis intervention techniques shown to be effective for those seeking support after being impacted by a critical incident or traumatic event. The intent of these interventions is to provide a sense of normalization, foster a sense of affiliation, and to assist an impacted individual to reestablish their disrupted natural coping strategies. Critical incident stress management (CISM) intervention is available from a number of sources, and employers should consider it as a resource for staff. These include:

• The Canadian Mountain Industry (an associated collection of HeliCat Canada, Canadian Avalanche Association, Avalanche Canada, Backcountry Lodges of BC Association, Association of Canadian Mountain Guides, and the Canadian Ski Guide Association) provides a CISM peer-support program to their staff (HeliCat Canada, n.d.).
• Some of the provincial worker compensation board agencies provide CISM response services to businesses (WorkSafeBC, 2018).
• Professional mental health clinicians provide this service.
• Mentorship programs provide peer group support networks. (Mountain Muskox, 2022)

Incident Response Communication Checklists

In addition to the operational functions of responding to a crisis, good communications and managing messages with media, public, families, staff, insurers, lawyers, and other stakeholders are crucial during a crisis event. The following communication checklists are organized in the first 1–3 hours of a crisis response, then into the first few days and weeks, until the event subsides (Coast Communications, 2020).

First Hour

• Engage with your organization’s executive team to confirm the facts of the incident
• Activate the Crisis Communications Plan and management team
• Develop key messages using the Concern/Action/Commitment model. Add in five Ws as available, who, what, where, why, what, how?
  • What was the cause?
  • What is our response?
  • What are the next steps?
  • When is the next update?
  • Where can more information be found?
• Begin monitoring social and traditional media
• Pull ads, social media – review before reactivating
• Determine media relations approach, including how/when to release a statement
• Secure approvals – determine who will be the approver of all public information – keep it streamlined
• Begin tracking media requests
• Assess resources, call external support if needed, begin saving all documents related to the crisis in a shared drive
• Provide advice on which key stakeholders require contacting and in what order and manner – i.e., outreach to regulators’ communications contacts, insurance broker, government
• Consider activating a crisis communications website if you have one (i.e., a dark site that is held in reserve in case it is needed) or quickly updating your homepage to make key information pronounced
• Determine spokesperson – brief them immediately

Two – Three Hours

• Connect with the full communications and Executive team, including any external advisors/consultants
• Continue to monitor social and traditional media and begin sending packages to your core team
• Correct the record immediately (provide updates in social media format to stakeholders to share, call individual reporters to update them, correct any misinformation)
• Update website/social media with new information if needed, including any statements
• Report to the team what media, key stakeholders, and the public are asking and saying – focus on verbal updates with analysis for the first few hours, but share written reports by email
• Consider the next cycle of major updates to the media and public
• Provide information to insurer and lawyer as required for daily updates
• Determine when the next press conference or media release will be issued
• Revisit key messages and update as information evolves
• Begin briefing and activating supporters/validators
• Check on the team – how are they doing? Physical health and mental health?

End of Day One

• Develop a report of social and traditional media. Provide analysis and advice:
• Determine the key issues. What information needs correcting? To what degree is your messaging being picked up? What are your partners saying?
• Consider where the story will go – what is the next phase of reporting? How can you be prepared?
• Determine if you need resources to relieve the first team (i.e., if media inquiries will continue through the evening)
• Confirm with response team what their plans and needs are for the next day
• Confirm all media interviews cleared

End of Day Two

• Confirm resourcing for the day
• Update key messages based on evolving information
• Begin assessing longer-term impact on reputation, update your Communications Plan as needed
• Check in with key stakeholders — share update if needed
• Do they have current information?
• What information are they receiving?
• Can they help share key messages?

End of Incident

• Wrap report
• Assess and track upcoming dates (reports, investigations, etc.)
• Place thank-you calls and send emails to key partners and stakeholders

References

• Coast Communications (2020). Canada West Ski Areas Association and HeliCat Canada COVID-19 Crisis Communications Plan. HeliCat Canada.
• HeliCat Canada (2019). Emergency and Post-Incident Management Resource Manual. HeliCat Canada.
• HeliCat Canada (no date). Canadian Mountain Community CISM Team.  Retrieved from https://www.helicat.org/cism-team
• Kings Printer (2019). British Columbia Worker’s Compensation Act, Chapter 1, Part 2 – Occupational Health and Safety, Division 10 – Employer Accident Reporting, Investigation and Related Prohibitions.  Retrieved from https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/19001_02 {for a more readable version see: https://www.worksafebc.com/en/health-safety/create-manage/incident-investigations/conducting-employer-investigation)
• Mountain Muskox (2022). Mentorship Program.  Retrieved from https://www.mountainmuskox.com/
• WorkSafeBC (2018). Critical incident response. Retrieved from https://www.worksafebc.com/en/claims/report-workplace-injury-illness/critical-incident-response