MetService page<\/a> on May 8 at 9.54am and 7.54pm.<\/p>\nOsborne said the data was tracking towards severe thunderstorms and heavy rain.<\/p>\n
He clarified MetService was unable to pinpoint exactly where in Northland the thunder and heavy rain would land, but that it would likely occur somewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe model can only tell us the conditions are right for thunderstorms. It\u2019s like having popcorn on the stove. For popcorn, you know they\u2019re going to pop, you just don\u2019t know which ones are going to pop first, some will pop, some probably won\u2019t pop,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Osborne said the threshold for a heavy rain alert was to expect 15-25mm of rain per hour, during which \u201cyou would need your windscreen wiper going pretty quickly\u201d.<\/p>\n
A final severe warning and thunderstorm watch was issued at 9.15am, about the time the students entered the cave.<\/p>\n
Under cross-examination, Osborne clarified that if the public is using the hourly rain watch data, there is a disclaimer that they should refer to the text, as that is the more accurate and accepted method. He said the disclaimer was not easy to read or interpret.<\/p>\n
School management culture \u2018tricky\u2019<\/p>\n
The staff involved in organising the trip have started giving evidence, with the first taking the stand today.<\/p>\n
Their names and details are suppressed pending further directions from the coroner.<\/p>\n
The inquest heard they had significant experience in caving and outdoor education and had previously organised hundreds of trips.<\/p>\n
Whang\u0101rei Boys\u2019 High had 80 field trips each year, timetabled for students to pass NCEA in outdoor education.<\/p>\n
![\"Rain]()
Rain poured over emergency services on the scene at Abbey Caves on May 9, 2023. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n
As they kept an eye on the weather in the seven days before the trip, the original kayaking event was changed to abseiling, and then to caving.<\/p>\n
The witness who took the stand today said it was changed because they knew it would be raining and they felt caving would be more appropriate, as it would keep the students out of the elements.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe final decision rests with [suppressed]. There was no formal process to postpone or cancel trips or set what factors needed to be considered,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could always be overruled by anyone above..\u201d<\/p>\n
The required health and safety forms were sent to the heads of staff. However, the witness said he received no response and assumed everything was okay.<\/p>\n
The man later said in evidence that he felt unsupported by school leaders and isolated.<\/p>\n
He said the culture at Whang\u0101rei Boys\u2019 High was \u201ctricky\u201d and although there was an open-door policy with the principal, if things were raised, they were not dealt with.<\/p>\n
He believed health and safety oversight should sit with someone not influenced by curriculum pressures who could provide an independent review and final sign\u2011off.<\/p>\n
The staff organisers were watching the MetService hourly rain radar and interpreted the data that heavy rain would hit about 2pm on the day of the trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had confidence in the images.\u201d<\/p>\n
A decision was made the day before to bring the trip forward so the students would be out of the caves by noon.<\/p>\n
While the witness was not at the caves, he recalled that \u201cat some point it started raining but it wasn\u2019t a deluge\u201d.<\/p>\n
At 10.15am, he received a phone call that the boys were stuck in the cave. <\/p>\n
He immediately went to the scene and said the water was 2-3m high when he got to the entrance of Organ Cave.<\/p>\n
When asked whether he believed the staff member at the cave made the right decision to evacuate the boys, the man said he had full trust in that person\u2019s knowledge and decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that group had got to the water five minutes earlier, they would have gone through and exited normally. If they had got there five minutes later, he would have had to stay in the back of the cave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t have food for the next day, they would have got cold, the situation would have been very different five minutes either way from what I read in his statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI trusted him and he had a lot of experience and I imagine at the time when he got to the water, he thought it was safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
The man said that after hearing Osborne\u2019s evidence from MetService, there were things he was not aware of when reading the data before the trip.<\/p>\n
One of his recommendations to the coroner was that all outdoor education facilitators sit a course with MetService to understand weather map reading.<\/p>\n
He believed in the values outdoor education provided for youth, but said it was not worth doing if it came with risks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was absolutely devastated by what happened and I still think of what happened on May 9 every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot imagine what Karnin\u2019s parents and family have gone through, and are going through and will go through for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cI continue to extend my very sincere and profound condolences. I carry Karnin\u2019s death with me, and the traumatic experience the students and instructors had, every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish certain events had not happened. If I could go back and make different decisions, of course, I would cancel the trip, but that is said with the immense benefit of hindsight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shannon Pitman is a Whang\u0101rei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ng\u0101puhi\/ Ng\u0101ti P\u016bkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhen I saw the entrance of the cave, the water was two or three metres high,\u201d the man,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[124396,18086,6127,95,8212,9218,674,80067,209268,10714,16639,7469,83475,42,33262,13999,296,20591,130,1304,43,29538,4062,8861,42327,1361,40,38,41,39,12628,25444,9863,33210,4998],"class_list":["post-406358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-abbey","tag-alerts","tag-already","tag-and","tag-anyone","tag-before","tag-building","tag-caves","tag-caving","tag-danger","tag-decisions","tag-forecasts","tag-grew","tag-headlines","tag-hour","tag-inquest","tag-into","tag-metservice","tag-more","tag-morning","tag-news","tag-probes","tag-school","tag-sky","tag-stepped","tag-that","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-tragedy","tag-urgent","tag-visit","tag-warnings","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}