teacher decided at \u201cthe squeeze,<\/a>\u201d about 200m into the cave, to turn the group back, there was no discussion with him.<\/p>\nWhen asked if he agreed with the decision, he said he did.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought there was too much uncertainty whether the high points would remain safe and dry.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the students were already in the water, following the teacher, when he began to consider retreating to the higher point where they had earlier been watching glow worms.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was straight behind me and I was considering it before I got into the water,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy didn\u2019t you?\u201d he was asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt an obligation to assist the students near the back of the group who had already got into the water. So I decided to enter as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he came around the corner near the exit point he saw the students struggling to get around a boulder as the water had created a churn system known as a \u201csieve\u201d.<\/p>\n
He made a decision to leave the tail end and shimmied along rocks to help the teacher and at one point, fell back into the water.<\/p>\n
When he managed to get out, he began pulling students out of the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came to the conclusion that if anyone had got trapped in the sieve, they would of been sucked down into the water with little, to no chance, of being able to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he could not recall which student Karnin was as he had only met them that day.<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The school’s board of trustees was charged by Worksafe and ordered to may more than $500,000 reparation. Photo \/ Denise Piper<\/p>\n
When he did the headcount, he initially got the number wrong but within a minute realised they were missing one student.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a harrowing experience. I believe we did the best we could …. that said I wish the trip had not gone ahead and Karnin was still with us today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I have never been asked my thoughts\u2019<\/p>\n
The man said he believed the teacher in charge was a hero and had saved several students from drowning but criticised the school.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhang\u0101rei Boys\u2019 High School has never issued an apology to me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been asked my thoughts on what lessons could be learned or changes or that these are my recommendations.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said there should be written agreements between the school and assistants defining their roles and safety risks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happens when an assistant instructor is reluctant to follow the lead instructor\u2019s decision making? Should it be that the path of least risk should be followed?\u201d<\/p>\n
A former board of trustees member gave evidence the school had accepted they failed specifically around the obligations of the role of a more senior leader who has since left.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of the role is to ensure processes are in place. He was empowered to challenge the people but wasn\u2019t necessarily across everything,\u201d the board member said.<\/p>\n
The board member said the role was intended to be the board\u2019s first line of oversight, and they were unaware he had adopted a \u201chands\u2011off\u201d approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe board fell down. [Suppressed] was not properly discharging his duties. That\u2019s part of what the school plead to.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he was asked whether staff were offered training in health and safety, or weather reading, he said they were \u201cself-directed\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe school didn\u2019t provide training, the school didn\u2019t prescribe it but made it available in provisional learning definitely. It was a self-management process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He agreed that at the time, there were no clear guidelines in place around weather cancellations and the school relied on staff to make decisions based on their own experiences.<\/p>\n
He said following the incident, the board was concerned with significant issues in the running of that department and has since implemented safety processes.<\/p>\n
All of the staff members involved with the incident, including former principal Karen Smith, have left the school.<\/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":"Northland had been under an orange weather warning for days and it was upgraded to a heavy\u2011rain warning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[124396,1848,80067,12629,2959,1043,111,43,139,7805,69,1118,691,52868,2171,6302,4062,6859,12628,1869],"class_list":["post-414348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-abbey","tag-boys","tag-caves","tag-coroner","tag-high","tag-leadership","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-no","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-or","tag-oversight","tag-plans","tag-safety","tag-school","tag-told","tag-tragedy","tag-whangrei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414348","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=414348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}