A Navy SEAL's 3 Tips to Keep Your Family Safe on Vacation
I love extreme family trips.
Skiing, SCUBA, travel, and more…
Recently I was reading about the skiers who perished in the Tahoe Donner avalanche in February and it became clear that it was a textbook failure in risk mitigation.
For those of you unfamiliar, a group of fifteen experienced skiers were on a guided backcountry ski trip near Donner pass in California near Lake Tahoe.
This was not just some freak accident or bad luck. Before the slide ever happened, people in the group were asking if the trip should be cancelled. All the warning signs were there. Bad weather, schedules to keep...
Once they were on the trip, the storm increased in intensity, and instead of holding their position and waiting for a window of safety, the decision was made to hike out into a rapidly deteriorating environment.
All this, despite a massive winter storm underway and high avalanche danger.
The huts the group were staying in had plenty of food, water and firewood to last days if not weeks. The group could have just waited it out a few more days for the storm to pass.
But as the weather worsened and visibility vanished, they made the fatal decision to hike out into the storm.
Then the avalanche hit the group, and by the time the snow settled, nine people were dead.
Reading all the reports on the incident it was clear that the accident was easily preventable.
I put together 3 tips to help you keep your family safe if you ever end up in a situation like this on a family trip.
Never be in a rush, because being in a hurry kills.
As a pilot, the one thing I’ve learned is that being in a rush to get some place is never a good idea. Usually this is caused by the desire to get to your destination before the weather gets worse.
It’s why I never fly in bad weather, ever.
Being in a hurry is the fastest way to end up as a statistic.
The “hurry up and die” mentality is a virus that infects your judgment. Just ask JFK jr. who famously killed himself and his passengers trying to outrun bad weather on a dark night over water. All this with no instrument rating, being proficient at using instruments to fly the plane in the event you can’t fly visually.
When you are on an trip with your family, you are the leader. And no flight or work meeting is worth your life or your family’s safety. Wait it out if you’re ever in that situation.
The Guide Is Not God
Just because someone has a positional authority or patch on their jacket does not mean they are incapable of a making an extremely poor decision.
“They are professionals they must know better.”
This is a psychological trap called the Expert Halo.
We are all humans and capable of letting incentives get the best of us. In this case, the guides don’t get paid if the trip doesn’t happen.
If you are worried about risk, ask yourself if the decisions being made are unbiased or are they influenced by outside factors (Money, schedules to keep, flights to make).
These are all huge drivers of bad decision making.
Ask Hard Questions
If things look bad, speak up and ask questions. “Why are we doing this?” “What are all the available options?”
You need to advocate for yourself and your family.
A leader who is too proud to listen to a “inexperienced” question is going to get people killed.
By vocalizing the risk, you take the power away from the fear and put it into the strategy.
The pilot in command of an aircraft has the sole responsibility for the safety of flight. As parents our family’s safety is our responsibility and ours alone.
I hope this resonated and would love to hear about some situations you’ve been in with your family where you’ve had to make a tough call.
Thx, Brandon
PS-Please order a copy of my new book, Puddle Jumpers, for yourself or as a gift.
