The perception of causes of accidents in mountain sports: A study based on the experiences of victims

Abstract

Each year, accidents involving mountain sports have many repercussions, including alarming public opinion and society. This study outlines the results of a qualitative study on the responses of 135 survivors of accidents that took place while mountaineering, climbing, downhill skiing and ski mountaineering, hiking, cross-country biking, and mountain racing. A content analysis was performed on the textual data obtained from the responses to an online survey. The identified causes were: environmental events, equipment, medical events, behavioral events, and time pressure, but they appear combined in different ways for the analyzed disciplines. Results show that for downhill skiing, direct causes of accidents were mainly behavioral: excessive speed, skiing errors, and fatigue. For ski mountaineering, direct causes were errors in decision-making and skiing. In mountaineering, precursors were unfavorable conditions, fatigue, lack of preparation, and skill errors. In climbing, difficulty is an omnipresent feature, but the precursors are mainly errors. Our results highlight the multi-causal nature of accidents that take place when practicing mountain sports. Finally, we examine the need to promote a mountain sports culture that highlights safety and injury prevention.

Introduction

Accidents are a serious risk for people who practice mountain sports (Schad, 2000, Schubert, 2002). Scientific literature regards mountain climbing and mountaineering as two sports that are characterized by both objective and perceived dangers (Delle fave et al., 2003). However, in more popular and accessible activities, such as skiing and hiking, there may be a certain discrepancy between the risks as perceived by their practitioners and the objective hazards, despite the fact that they could lead to death or severe disability (Andersen et al., 2004).

The scant data available shows that there is a very high accident rate for the popular practices of mountaineering, hiking, and skiing. For example, in the summer of 2002, 56% of the missions of French rescue teams were to rescue hikers, as recorded by the Systeme National d’Observation de la Securité en Montagne (2003a). Something similar holds true on the ski slopes (Systeme National d’Observation de la Securité en Montagne, 2003b). Ruffier and Descamps (2003) estimate that in winter 2001–2002, the number of skiing accidents on French slopes was much higher than that cited by official statistics. This high accident rate is at least partly due to the popularity of mountain sports (Schad, 2000), as well as the emergence of new sports or free-time activities that are practiced on the mountains, such as snowboarding (Goulet, 2002, Ronning et al., 2000, Torjussen and Bahr, 2005). This increase, however, has not gone hand in hand with a greater awareness of the risks entailed in practicing mountain sports (Sombardier, 2002).

In fact, when people think about accidents, the notion of “fatality” (that is, the belief that they were fated to happen) prevails (Pless and Hagel, 2007), which does not contribute to taking preventive measures. In popular thinking, explanations as to the cause of accidents tend to be incomplete, fatalistic, or resulting from the belief in the forces of nature and other rather unscientific beliefs (Torell and Bremberg, 1995). Generally speaking, people tend to erroneously estimate the probabilities of health risks and these risks are perceived as being lower than they are in actuality, which might discourage the adoption of protective measures (Weinstein and Klein, 2002). The erroneous perception of risk is also heightened if the risk is perceived as new, imminent, uncontrollable, and catastrophic (Lloyd, 2001). Research on the discrepancy between the perception of risk and real risk is quite relevant. Studies in this field suggest that preventive measures are not taken when facing risks as people tend to believe that risks affect others more than themselves and to view risk categorically (an activity is either safe or risky) as opposed to being an issue of probability or degree of exposure (Lloyd, 2001).

Also, there is no question that there is a need to know more about the causes of injuries when practicing sports (Chalmers, 2002), an issue for which the lack of research is alarming. As Chalmers (2002) has claimed, preventing injuries in sports is a phenomenon that now reaches beyond sports to become a true issue in promoting health, which requires the risk factors and the mechanisms that cause injuries to be identified. Studies that attempt to identify the causes of sports injuries are not overly plentiful. In contrast, many studies have been performed in the field of housework (Torell and Bremberg, 1995) that might serve as a point of reference for undertaking a systematic study of injuries in mountain sports. This is the case of the study by Williamson and Feyer (1998), which identified the different circumstances that might come into play in injuries produced by electrical devices and lines. Their classification system for the causes distinguished between events that immediately precede an accident (precursors) and events that contribute to the accident.

Another reference could be the study by Hobbs and Williamson (2002) on identifying the causes of accidents that take place during airplane maintenance. Using the skill-rule-knowledge (SRK) model devised by Rasmussen (1982), the authors found that the difference between skill-rule and knowledge was reliable when describing the tasks and that the percentages of errors were different for each task, with errors in skills and rules being the most frequent.

Finally, the study of road traffic accidents could also provide some guidance regarding methods for identifying causes of accidents in mountain sports. In this sense, Larsen and a multidisciplinary team (Larsen, 2004, Larsen and Kines, 2002) have analyzed road traffic accidents and distinguished between factors related to the road user, environment, and vehicle. A special emphasis is placed on how the driver perceives and interprets information from the road, environment, and his own vehicle, and how the driver makes decisions.

The purpose of this study is to identify the perceived causes of accidents in mountain sports because this is particularly important in the prevention field (Torell and Bremberg, 1995). Given the very little research done on accidents in mountain sports, a qualitative approach might be especially appropriate. For this reason, we designed an exploratory qualitative study that provides an initial approach into the causes of mountain accidents from the standpoint of accident survivors.