One yr in the past, Maya Bhatia, a biogeochemist on the College of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, stepped out of a helicopter onto a glacier close to Grise Fiord (Aujuittuq) within the Canadian Arctic to gather a pattern of soften water. To the horror of her scholar and the pilot, she slipped right into a stream and was swept right into a moulin, a vertical shaft within the glacier. There was no approach to save her. Bhatia left behind her husband and two younger kids.
As a geographer-turned-writer who has visited the Arctic, I do know all too effectively the risks of doing fieldwork in distant locations. Whereas researching environmental change, I’ve needed to traverse glaciers, scare off grizzly bears and take measurements from fast-flowing rivers. In my view, establishments have to do way more to organize subject researchers for the surprising. As I’ve skilled, thorough coaching and clear management can and can save lives.
Removed from emergency providers and with out mobile-phone protection, even skilled researchers will be caught out. For instance, in August 2020, glaciologist Konrad Steffen died after falling right into a crevasse on the Greenland ice sheet the place he’d labored for greater than 30 years. Wilderness journey brings risks. In 2021, a helicopter accident east of Resolute in Nunavut, Canada, killed the crew and a biologist who had simply completed surveying polar bears. In 2011, Martin Bergmann, the pinnacle of Canada’s Polar Continental Shelf Program, died in a aircraft crash.
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Journey accidents are out of our palms, however a lot will be finished to mitigate fieldwork dangers. Security programs are a great place to begin, however not sufficient. As a graduate scholar finding out Arctic glacier hydrology within the 2000s, it wasn’t till I arrived at my subject website that I used to be briefed on tips on how to journey safely throughout the ice and rescue somebody from a crevasse. It made me extra conscious of those hazards, however I wasn’t assured that I’d be capable to save somebody.
The following yr, I pushed my supervisor to put money into a extra in-depth course in crevasse rescue with a licensed mountain information. After going over the fundamentals, we practised the strategies, corresponding to setting anchors and utilizing pulleys to tug folks out of the snow. I additionally obtained coaching in wilderness first assist and firearms dealing with, for doable encounters with aggressive polar bears.
After I turned a tenure-track professor in 2007 on the College of Lethbridge in Canada, and my fieldwork shifted to the Rocky Mountains, I accomplished coaching in all-terrain car dealing with and avalanche rescue. My college required leaders of fieldwork journeys like me to determine hazards and submit a plan outlining how we might take care of them. This included what to do in case of an accident or emergency, and tips on how to keep away from these conditions within the first place. Though it is a good thought, it will possibly put together you for less than a restricted set of foreseen occasions.
All of my coaching was useful throughout an emergency {that a} graduate scholar and I had in 2008 on the Belcher Glacier (Devon Island ice cap). We had been minimize off from our camp by rivers of slush, and my scholar received soaked to the waist whereas making an attempt to cross considered one of them. It was an surprising scenario that I’m undecided I dealt with effectively. We ended up being evacuated by helicopter again to the analysis base in Resolute.
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It was a reminder that not all issues go as deliberate, and you can’t management the atmosphere, solely your actions. That’s why I believe that, along with security coaching, one of the simplest ways to keep away from mishaps is to make sure that the principal investigator working the workforce of fieldworkers has accomplished management coaching for emergency conditions.
After Bhatia’s loss of life, the College of Alberta has, rightly, taken a more in-depth have a look at fieldwork practices and duties. The college now expects researchers to enact a sequence of situations that they could encounter within the subject, together with evaluating hazards, assessing incidents and responding to emergencies. It is a good first step. One think about Bhatia’s tragic loss of life was that she wasn’t carrying crampons or a harness tied to a rope, which could have saved her life. Her husband additionally famous that she was working lengthy days and experiencing analysis pressures on the time.
The opportunity of hiring guides for Arctic scientists is being mentioned. However, in my opinion, this shifts an excessive amount of duty away from the researchers and onto the guides, which could make fieldworkers much less cautious.
A greater choice is for universities and different establishments to organize researchers extra intensively for fieldwork — together with nominating and coaching the workforce’s supervisor to be an efficient chief in a disaster.
It’s essential that expeditions are led by somebody who can mannequin applicable behaviour, implement security protocols and make fast, good selections if issues begin going sideways. They need to have a deal with on their colleagues’ well-being and group dynamics, and be capable to take care of tough conditions shortly and successfully. Researchers who’re too drained or harassed to function safely needs to be supported, and journeys to gather samples needs to be deferred or cancelled, quite than placing folks in harms approach.
Fieldwork won’t ever be accident-free. However we want it — to validate remote-sensing analysis, to gather samples or to see the atmosphere in motion, one thing you possibly can’t do from afar. And, with enough coaching, we are able to make fieldwork a lot safer. Bhatia was an enthusiastic researcher on the high of her sport earlier than the tragedy. She didn’t deserve what occurred to her; we should study from this accident in order that it doesn’t occur once more.
Competing Pursuits
The writer declares no competing pursuits.
