The incident statistics in Swedish climbing has improved during the last year thanks to online registration. Cooperation with the insurance industry (a single company) has resultet in an extended offer covering more than the standard membership insurance. A yearly analysis is presented in the magazine Bergsport. Still, there is too little climbing going on to make valid statistical conclusions or even find instructive examples from the data. Do we know what we are doing? ("Wissen wir was wir tun?", Urs Odermatt falling, Alpinist magazine, issue 14).

How about extendeding the scope of selection?

This article (yes, it's long) covers:

The number of accidents must be related to the occasions of practise. All climbers are exposed to risk, wheareas only a few climbers are registered in an organisation. Still, the number of registered climbers could be anticipated to represent the same trends as the total climbing population. UIAA member statistics is not publically available. A total estimate would be 2.5 million climbers, according to the office. Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Italy have many members. USA and Canada, of course. I find nothing about Russia, China, India, etc. Then there are numerous countries with dedicated, very active, but few climbers.

Germany have 73 000 registered climbers. Statistics is based on rescues reported by the rescue organisation rather than reports from the climbers themselves. The analysis is excellent, but the source data is not easily available, making comparison and aggregation difficult. Dieter Stopper at Sicherheitsforschung des Deutschen Alpenvereins DAV refers to the annual report, covering 78 rock and ice climbing incidents during 2005.

In France, there is the organisation SNOSM (Système national d'Observation de la sécurité en montagne), a national system of observation of safety in the mountains. SNOSM is based at the national school of ski and alpinism ENSA (Ecole Nationale de Ski et d'Alpinisme) in Chamonix. SNOSM is connected to the ministry of youth and the sports, the ministry of the interior (direction of defense and civil safety) and of the ministry of defense. For 2005, SNOSM have published a 3 page report on mountain incidents.

 Italy: I am trying to contact the federations through homepage contact details, so far without success. I have not yet found anything published online (maybe since I don't understand the language).

 Austria have Verband Alpiner Vereine Österreichs (VAVÖ) and Österreichischer Alpenverein (ÖAV), none with online reports, as far as I can tell.

USA: Produced jointly by the Safety Committees of the American Alpine Club and the Alpine Club of Canada, "Accidents in North American Mountaineering" is published annually since 1947 (including Canada since 1978).

 Canada: The Edmonton Section of the Alpine Club of Canada have 1528 accidents including 661 photos online, last updated March 5, 2006, going back to 1954. Incidents reported for 2005 include 5 in ice climbing, 15 in mountaineering, 9 in rock climbing. Database and website design by Chris Wood, website maintained by Edwina Podemski.

New Zealand have a fresh project with so far no reports online.

 Great Britain: Tony Ryan at the BMC refers to the Mountain Rescue Council of England and Wales, reporting 44 rock climbing incidents (none in snow/ice climbing) in the annual report of 2004. Statistics Officer Ged Feeney writes the move to full electronic reporting deserves to be embraced with enthusiasm.

Turkey is running a survey on mountain incidents. Nejat Akinci, board member of the Turkish Mountaineering Federation, says he will present results during a conference in October, 2006.

Spain has 16 regions, each with its own mountain rescue team. Xosé M Pérez Prego, director of the Spanish federation EEAM, says the federation has no data about mountain accidents.

Norway reports 48 incidents (7 on ice). 214 incidents are currently published online, the oldest from 1998. Norweigan reporting is excellent. This seems to be due to sheer national spirit. Only in a few serious cases have the federation found itself in need to report without a primary source involved. Stein Tronstad of the Norwegian federation is proud of his fellow climbers. Martin Nilsson, Swedish representative, thinks Norwegian statistics is excellent from a climber's perspective.

 Sweden reports 47 incidents (28 resulting in injury) during 2005 (compared to 25 reported for 2004). Improved reporting, rather than an increased number of incidents, explains the doubled count of reports says Roger Pyddoke from the Swedish federation SKF in the annual analysis (in Swedish).

The published information is full of valuable experience. There are several interviews. But, with a few exceptions, there is not enough data for statistical conclusions or even trends. Maybe it's a legal thing, in many countries climbers, guides and professionals in particular, are at risk of being sued in case of an accident. There is a fear of insurance companies increasing premiums or even refusing to offer insurance. Maybe its not commercially viable, most of us do this without ecnonomic compensation. Maybe its an organisational thing, especially when language is an issue. But maybe its just infrastructure. There is simply no way to report, even if the diffuculties were to be overcome.

Eliza Moran, president of the UIAA Mountaineering Committee, although unreservedly service minded in answering hundreds of external enquiries every year, states the fact that one on one exchange and personal contacts is superior, "surveys are notriously difficult to be filled out, everyone is concerned to have this type of information in print". Still, the above examples indicate many organisations see a benefit in transparent statistics. Most of us lack relations required to build our own picture without the statistics. Let's invite the UIAA members to a survey. I am trying to invite mountaineering committe representatives through their coordinator. We will be publishing results, if any, during September 2006.

What should we ask for? For a draft, sheer basics is enough. For further inspiration and a complete picture, have a look a the Norwegian data model (temporarily translated by myself), used by the Norwegian federation Norges Klatreforbund, published with the kind permission of Stein Tronstad. This model focus on climbing only, whereas e.g. the German DAV report need to cover for all mountain activity.

To learn about climbing, not only events requiring rescue, medical or insurance resources are relevant, but also incidents as violations of security policies, emergencies, almost-accidents. Not only members but also independent outsiders and event observed events without primary information. There is a need for a common definition of an incident.

The DAV report registeres a reservation for a large hidden number of incidents. Almost all helicopter rescues without injury are reported (due to insurance claims), whereas only a small ratio of sport cragging incidents without injury are (prestige, indulgence).

Collecting data: Report sources include the victim climber, co-climbers, other climbers in the area, other peopel in the area, insurance companies, media. What other sources are available? Media covers a majority of fatal accidents in climbing and is used as a notifyer by some federations. Hospitals and authorities report accidents, but not in a perspective useful for learning about climbing. Possibilities to collect and influence this external reporting are few.
 
Identification: A Swedish climber rescued in the Alps may be reported by several instances: the Swedish federation, the rescue organisation, the local federation. When aggregating, there is a need to exclude or even refine data describing identical events. Facts on place (maybe position coordinates) and time (date, hour, minute), aswell as a common id, would be necessary.

Out of human, legal and commercial respect of integrity, information revealing the identity of anyone concerned in a reported incident must be excluded to encourage reporting and to avoid negative impacts of publishing. The National Incident Database managed by The New Zealand Mountain Safety Council applies a privacy statement derived from national legislation (Privacy Act, Health Information Privacy Code, equivalent of the Swedish PUL legislation of Datainspektionen). Subjective or judging descriptions could also be excluded, although tangible learning points come from such vivid and subtle narratives, rather than categorized pie charts. This is illustrated by the DAV report, and is true for text aswell as photos. A picture will gain attention and precisely describe the situation and impact, but also appeals to sensational curiosity. Even a photo without human motives intrudes integrity more than text would. Maybe the way the medical litterature uses photos could serve as a role model. Schematic graphics such as the appreciated instructions of the Petzl catalog.

To learn from the example, a full story is the best source. For statistical conclusions, the event must be categorized. The selection will never become representative, but may well reflect changes and tendencies. The summer of 2005 brought a lot of rain to the European alps, which will be visible in the statistics in comparison to other summers. Evironment (weather, location, time of day and year), aswell as age, sex, experience of everyone involved is relevant. To enable aggregation, a basic common standard would be useful (to extend where needed). 

Causes may be difficult and misleading to define. When is lack of experience a direct cause? Still, a division of subjective (mistake, experience) and objective (avalanche, rock fall, storm) causes is necessary, although exposure to objective danger may be caused by lack of experience or a known risk. The consequences must be considered, at least in terms of death or missing / injured / not injured. Characteristics (rapell, solo) and disciplines (bouldering, ice, crag, alpine) needs to be included.

Periodization is an issue. Annual reporting, from the first of January to the last of December, seem to be de facto standard, althouh it confuses conclusions about seasonal variations, since the ice climbing season is split into two calendar years. Analyzing the recent year as opposed to a 10 year period reduces problems of increased reporting per practician and other measuring disorders.

Validity: Are the reported accidents relevant to what we are trying to measure? Sometimes climbing is only a small part of a common reporting system covering outdoor activitites such as trekking and skiing. Also, mountaineering (peak trekking or expeditions) may be distiguished from rock and ice climbing. Indoor climbing may be reported together with other sports in the same arena. Categorizing is not a problem for aggregation as far as a specific rock and ice climbing category is defined. DAV defines climbing as routes from UIAA grade III and ice steeper than 50 degrees.

Reliability: Are the accidents reported in a trustworthy manner? An online form may produce casual or even fake reports, to a larger extent than a traditional printed form or phone reporting. Restricting reporting to registered members would probably cause more damage by limiting the ratio of reported accidents than it would improve the quality of the reports. Still, reports need to be verified by the collecting party. This could be done by identification of the subjects and suppliers of the report, but to store the source data with information needed for verification may interfere with the need to exclude personal data for integrity reasons. This is also true for references, although the possibility to contact people involved could be very useful in specific cases.

Getting everyone to report to the same source is a utopia. Smooth integration is the pragmatic way. From a statistical point of view, adding up data of different sources would only be meaningful if validity and reliability were reasonably controlled and similar. Adding to the list of interesting examples does not necessary have to comply with all these requirements.

How does everyone else do? Compared to climbing, sport diving is a sport full of regulations and standards. Still, the Swedish federation SSDF have only some 10-20 reported incidents during 2005 (to be compared to some 50 drownings in total in Sweden during July 2006). Private organisations such as PADI do not share statistics with the national federation. Reporting is relatively poorly developed. Aggregation with other nations and organisations is unheard of, says SSDF representative Håkan Karlsson.

Popular sports as hockey and football report thousands of accidents. Competition licensing guarantees everyone is insured. Only a minorit of climbers are competing. Still, a majority is insured. But even where insurance compensation requires reporting, not all accidents and certainly not all incidents are reported. This is the nature of climbing.

What if an organisation such as UIAA suggested a common way of presenting accident statistics and offered a standardized tool for national reporting? Chose a best practice country and create an incentive for member organisations to follow. Improved internal reporting and reduced administration would be enough to make several federations accept such a suggestion.

Members should provide basic, annual source data and publish a report in English online, as opposed to in magazines only. The aggregated data should be published with a yearly analysis and an online filtered searchable database table such as the Canadian or Norwegian ones. Naturally poor for a start, but increasingly relevant.

A reduced number of injured members might be incetive enough, but why not include commercial interests in terms of the gear and insurance industries in financing this effort? On top of the conclusions for improving their business, they will positively gain the ears of the climbing community whilst presenting the results. Or else a climbing magazine or blog will.

Written by David Hässler

Safety Organisations

USA http://www.americanalpineclub.org/pages/page/72
Canada http://www.alpineclubofcanada.ca/services/safety/
New Zealand http://www.incidentreport.org.nz
Great Britain http://www.mountain.rescue.org.uk/publications/statistics.php

Incident Statistics

Sweden 2005 http://www.klatterforbundet.se/pdf/sakerhet/Incidentrapporter2005.pdf
Norway since 1998 http://www.klatring.no/sikkerhet/pages/rapportAlle00.asp
Germany 2005 http://www.alpenverein.de/template_loader.php?tplpage_id=105&id=344&mode=details#listEntry344
Switzerland http://www.sac-cas.ch/Rettung.393.0.html
Britain 2004 http://www.mountain.rescue.org.uk/publications/2004%20Annual%20Report.pdf  
Canada http://alpineclub-edm.org/accidents/index.asp

Litterature

Accidents in North American Mountaineering 2005,
Jed Williamson, MOUNTAINEERS BOOKS, to be released during August 2006, 112 pages ISBN: 1933056029.

Whitepapers

"Undersökning av skador anmälda 1998-2004 på Svenska Klätterförundets försäkring" (translates to "Analysis of damages reported 1998-2004 through SKF insurance"), Lars-Inge Svensson, Folksam, Stockholm, May 28, 2005.