SERAC database of incident and accident reports

List of incidents and accidents
See the lessons learnt from the first 200 events
Map of incidents and accidents

By adding your testimony:

• You share your misadventure, turning it into a learning situation for the benefit of the entire community.
• You help to build collective intelligence, improving our knowledge of accident scenarios.
• You contribute to the development of a culture of experience feedback, based on actual problem situations.
• You facilitate the production of technical recommendations and the progress of accidentology research.
• You gain insight into your own experience.
• You improve your risk management thanks to other people’s tales.

This database is a collaborative project, involving accidentology researchers, the Petzl Foundation and Camptocamp Association, working together for the benefit of all.

The report entry form was designed by accidentology experts, with help from mountain professionals and sportsmen and women. Your suggestions are welcome to help it to evolve.

To enter your testimony, fill in the form or click the link at the bottom of your excursion.
There are a number of optional fields requesting personal information, which will only be visible to the site moderators and researchers.

If you prefer to remain anonymous, or not to link this report to your c2c account, send the report (along with any photos) by email to base-accidents@camptocamp.org, and it will be entered via the SERAC database account.

In order to be useful, the form has to be detailed, and it takes between 15 and 30 minutes to complete.

What types of events can be reported?

This database aims to gather reports of accidents, incidents or near-misses.
However, the events reported should not or should no longer be concerned by legal proceedings.

An accident is an event resulting in one or more physical injuries (regardless of whether or not organised rescue teams were involved), no matter how serious.
An incident is an event that did not result in injury. For example, a fall or an avalanche with no physical consequences, a nearby rock fall, etc.

A near-miss is a situation in which no specific event occurred, but several factors were present, that could have resulted in the situation deteriorating into an incident or an accident ("we were lucky!"). For example, getting lost, not having the right equipment, realising a rope was not properly set at the last moment, ending up in a state of exhaustion, etc.

Why the interest in near-misses and incidents as well as accidents?

Like the study of accidents, the analysis of incident and near-miss scenarios enables identification of the conducive circumstances, recurrent risk factors and sensitive sectors. It is therefore of great value in terms of learning opportunities, particularly because of the specific advantage of incidents and near-misses, unlike actual accidents: identification of the factors that enabled avoidance of the actual accident.

Who can report an event?

The following people are invited to submit a report:

• Anyone affected (or "almost affected") by the event,
• Members of the group affected by the accident, incident or near-miss,
• Members of a near-by group, who may have assisted with the rescue operation.

The most useful testimonies for researchers are those of direct witnesses: the person injured or members of the group of the injured person. One of the ambitions of this database is to understand the sequence of circumstances leading up to the situations reported. People from outside the group only have a partial view of this scenario.
However, testimonies from people outside the group are accepted, although the witness must have been present on site. “Second hand” reports will not be accepted.
Please fill in the “Involvement in the situation” field correctly in the "Profile" section.

Why share stories of misadventures in a natural environment or in the mountains?

There is much to be learned from the incidents, near-accidents and accidents that we witness or suffer. The goal of this database is to gather information about these events from around the world and to share this information with as many people as possible.

By contributing your testimony to the database:

• You share your misadventure, turning it into a learning situation for the benefit of the entire community.
• You help to build collective intelligence, improving our knowledge of accident scenarios.
• You contribute to the development of a culture of experience feedback, based on actual problem situations.
• You facilitate the production of technical recommendations and the progress of accidentology research.

Who will be able to see my report? How might it be used?

All camptocamp.org visitors have access to all the reports (menu > Topoguide > Incidents and accidents).
A search filter enables the reports to be sorted by region, activity, type of event, etc.

However, your personal information is only visible by moderators and researchers.
This personal information includes: how often you do this activity, number of excursions during the year, autonomy in the activity, age at the time of the event, gender, number of previous injuries.

A research project based on the database information will follow up the diagnosis and inventory of sites carried out by laboratory researchers on vulnerabilities and innovation in sport (L-Vis / Lyon university), published in December 2014: Improving the accidentology of mountain sports.

How to enter a report?

With this version, only contributors who already have a camptocamp.org account can add a report.
If you do not have an account, you can enrol for free.

Creation

To create an incident or accident report, open a new form.
The form is in four parts:

• Event characteristics: type of event, geolocation on a map, number of people affected, etc.
• Description of the facts.
• Factors and influence: elements that influenced the event.
• Profile: involvement in the situation and personal information.

Even if you have not finished your report, click “Create” at the bottom of the form to save your data. You can modify or complete the report later, by clicking “Modify” in the column on the left of your report.

Photos

Photos can be added to the report, but the report must be saved first.
Click Add pictures at the bottom of the report to open the interface to upload the photos.
See Album assistance for more information.
If you have already saved photos for an excursion, they can be associated with your report to avoid having to upload them again.

Associations

You can associate your report with an itinerary, a climbing site or your excursion for the same date, but this is optional.
You can also associate other members of the group to enable them to add to certain descriptions or add photos. In this case, the information in the “Profile” section should be that of the most affected person among all those associated with the report.

List of your reports

You can easily find all your reports: menu > My C2C > My incidents.

Can my report be modified by a third party? Can I delete my report?

A report can only be modified by its authors (the members associated with the report) and by the site’s moderators.
If you want to delete your report or a photo, please contact the moderators by clicking "Report a problem" in the column on the left of the report to be deleted.

How are the reports moderated?

The moderators only alter reports to correct dates, geo-referencing or formatting (moving information to the most relevant fields).
Only moderators can correct document associations, for example, to move a report to the right itinerary.

Can comments be added?

Only identified members can post a comment on an accident or incident report. To encourage the entry of testimonies, the moderators will delete any comments concerning the reports that are malevolent or cast blame.

Can I make a suggestion concerning the form?

Yes, in fact, that is one of the reasons for this test version before the tool is deployed on the new version of camptocamp.org in fall 2016. You can add a comment to this article, or send an email to the moderators to share your remarks and suggestions.