C-Forum

Hello,

My name is Carey Nichols and I am currently helping the American Canoe Association conduct a brief overview of whitewater paddlesport accidents. This summer, I am attempting to run some analysis on paddlesport accidents as a whole, with specific focus on the differences between whitewater enthusiasts and paddlers at large. I have created a quick and easy survey using Google Documents that will take about 3 minutes for most people to fill out. There are instructions on the survey, but the most important part is you will NEVER be contacted or have to share any identifiable information; this survey is 100% anonymous!!

If you have a moment, please help us out by sharing your experiences here:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform ... c6MQ#gid=0


I will be keeping any eye on this forum post if people have any questions, and I thank you for your responses in advance, they are instrumental in helping us paint a better picture of whitewater sport accidents and safety. If you don't mind passing that link along to your other paddlefriends it would do me a huge favor!

For more information about the ACA and what they do, please visit:
http://www.americancanoe.org

Thank you for your time, and see everyone on the water!
Carey

I've never been injured while paddling. It seems there's no way I can complete the survey because there is no way to answer some of the questions that is consistent with never being injured.

If only the injured can get through the survey, it wouldn't seem to be representative of all whitewater paddlers. The activity may end up looking more dangerous than it really is.

clarion,

Good point, some of the wording was a bit unclear, I have made some quick changes to avoid confusion. Thank you for your input!

Carey

Yes, there is a design flaw. The survey has questions such as "If you had to assign one primary cause for a majority of your whitewater injuries and/or accidents, which of the below would be the best fit? *"

Since I have never had a "significant" injury I cannot answer, but I also cannot choose to not answer this question.

Another recommendation is an operational definition of "significant injury".

From my perspective... "most" whitewater related injuries and deaths come from people that cleary don't understand it... at all.

Same reason I've never tried taming Lions and Tigers.

Jim- Good catch, I added a quick help text...that question was meant to get at "in your opinion" type responses, if those injuries are yours or somebody else. So, if you haven't been hurt, what would you say is the most often cause of whitewater injury in other words.

Sorry for the confusion, thank you for the input!


Craig - You are correct....Educate, educate, educate!


Carey

I think there should have been a question in there about how long a person has paddled--not just how many days a year, but how many years so far.

I was amazed to be asked why I had not "reported" a significant injury. (In my case it was knee dislocation during leg entrapment that could have been fatal.)

I have no idea what "official" agency would have been interested. I wrote the incident up in our club newsletter, and I sent an account to Charlie Wallbridge. But there literally was, and is no "official" place taking data routinely on non-fatal accidents.

And probably that's as it should be. Give bureaucrats a bunch of data, no matter how balanced and fair, and they may do great mischief with it. I'm already fed up with Coast Guard meddling, I'm tired of people who think I should be taking courses, and I just want to spend my last years paddling some nice rivers.

Oh, and Mr. nicholsACA, what about all the injuries incurred while wading, scouting, portaging, lifting boats onto vehicles, etc.? These can be as severe or more so.

For that matter, my leg entrapment occured while body surfing during lunch. So I suppose that was not a paddling injury. You can take it out of the statistics.

ezwater wrote:Oh, and Mr. nicholsACA, what about all the injuries incurred while wading, scouting, portaging, lifting boats onto vehicles, etc.? These can be as severe or more so.

For that matter, my leg entrapment occured while body surfing during lunch. So I suppose that was not a paddling injury. You can take it out of the statistics.

Surfing a $pon$on?

Having had no injuries, I can't complete the survey - the last two questions do not allow me to check that they are not relevant.

If the survey is anonymous, and doesn't record IP address or other way to define an entrant, the results can easily be skewed, which means the whole thing is worthless quite frankly.

The questions also seem to assume that we've all been hurt.

I've been on the water for over 30 years, and other than the odd cut or bruise (minor, usually from loading boats or getting in / out of certain put ins / take outs) have no injuries. Admittedly for the first 15 of those years I didn't paddle much, but I've tried to make up for that:)

Done...

But I too question some of the quesitons....

No place to mark off "Only pride injured!"

No ""Decked" Canoes (Solo or Tandem)".... Ah this is a ACA survey you might want to add C1 / C2 to the list. Not that I have a C1/2 bias!!!

No "just screwed up" section(s). Most of my injuries are pilot errors due to lack of focus.... which would require me to watch what the heck I'm doing!



PS: Criag you're luck you used a $ sign since that "word" can get you kicked off the forum ... for life!

Are you interested in canoe specific injuries? Doesnt AW keep a pretty intensive account of incidents? Whats the purpose of this survey?

Ok lots to get back to, CBoats has been by far the most responsive forum, and I appreciate the give and take!


Smurfwarrior - I'm interested in all types of whitewater injuries, and yes, AW does keep an intensive account of incidents, along with the US Coast Guard. However, the logistics of keeping track of the average paddler's experiences is obviously very difficult, and it struck me that a large part of your routine paddle injuries likely go unreported. Therefore, I'm looking to use this "quick and easy" survey to compare trends that I find to those suggested by the more typical and official records.


PAC - I hear you, but please don't consider this an end-all, national institute of science type survey. One of the issues with tracking paddlesports through other means is exactly what you're pointing out, that there is a huge difference to those of us involved in the sport between different boating types, but they are often lumped in together. To make things a bit easier I shaved some things down, and for that I apologize, but in the long run I think it will pay off, as the survey didn't end up being 100 questions long.


Sir Adam - The last two questions were intended to be more opinion based for those individuals who have not ever experienced an injury. I am sorry it was not more clear, honest mistake, but I did not assume that everyone has been injured in a whitewater accident. Keep your streak alive! Again, the survey does not identify individuals to protect people's privacy, which was of critical importance to me. This is intended to be a snapshot, not a definitive look into the whitewater world, and I understand that this data will be far from perfect. The dataset collected will certainly require interpretation, but at the moment I have zero answers to these questions, and this is a free and easy way to try and grapple with some of these aspects of our sport. For the critical analysis in a paper I am preparing, I am relying on more "official" and standardized datasets, those compiled by the USCG etc. This is an efficient manner to try and compare those numbers to some more raw information directly from enthusiasts. Please don't think I'm about to re-write major laws and lobby for ACA to make decisions based on these responses, that is far from the truth, but I understand your point.


ezwater - You have pointed out one of the major issues with paddlesport accidents and how they are handled. I don't have a solution for you, but it does seem that the more enthusiast-based organizations know the better for all of us. For the purposes of this quick look into the paddlesport world, I believe it makes sense to include incidents that occur to individuals that encompass the entire "river day," so your leg entrapment should remain. In either case, your main goal of the day was to enjoy whitewater paddlesport activities, and this was an unfortunate consequence that I am glad you are here to report. I know the system isn't perfect, but it's a start, and there will always be some blur around the margins with paddlesports.

milkman - Good point, I see what you're getting at, but I elected to exclude that because years experience doesn't always equate to overall experience. For example, a person could have been paddling for 10 years, but really only make it out ~5 days a year, compared to somebody who started 5 years ago at 45+ days a year. So, I went with the days/year metric instead, and I'm really just going for a snap shot of paddle injury profiles at this instant.

Ok, I filled it out. Not impressed.
Seems to me the purpose of this survey is to somehow draw (force) a parrallel between the need for more training (by the ACA presumably) to reduce injuries. Your leading questions/answers do nothing to find the actual causes... how about overuse, how about elbows? 45 days on the river as your top end? Lots of us do that much before the snow melts. Quadruple that figure at least.

As the president of an ACA Paddle America club, I believe the last thing we need is to give ammunition to the club insurance underwriter to start demanding a level of "ACA Training" for coordinators and participants before providing insurance for events.

I'm sorry, but I question your motives and the possible unintentional consequences of your admittedly skewed results. The AW does a fine job of documenting events that we can all learn from and I see no need for this. Pardon my bluntness