The canyoning tragedy on Tuesday (6 students and teacher from Elim Christian College in Auckland swept away and drowned by a flash flood) has brought back a few unpleasant memories and created a few new ones. When I saw the footage on TV of the school's reaction to the news, I couldn't help but remember when a car crash claimed four senior students of my school in 1991 (one escaped - she was burned, but lived) - that one was caused by a drunk driver coming around a blind corner on the wrong side and taking out the car containing the Wanganui High School students. This event was even worse: kids out for an innocent good time and not coming home. It doesn't get much more awful, really. I knew the parents of some of the kids too - NZ isn't that big, and I had a few connections with the churches on that side of Auckland when I was up there. I know what this does to a school and to the friends and families of those who died. I hope that they have plenty of support, for a long, long time.
I will be very interested in the results of the official investigations, especially the Dept of Labour one, but I am getting very tired by members of the media saying that "We will get to the bottom of this" and "We will find out what happened tonight" - good investigations of industrial accidents take a while, and I'd like to see the investigators left alone to do their job. Finger-pointing should wait until the truth is known - and maybe not even then!
Pachyderm
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