Cave Creek: The Full Story of a National Tragedy

[Music] [Music] [Music] Radio New Zealand news good evening I'm Peter fry the death toll from the collapse of a viewing platform on the west coast today could rise 14 people died and four a serious ly injured after the platform at Cave Creek Inland from punakaiki collapsed plunging them 30 m down a cliff [Music] [Laughter] face this is the story of a national tragedy what really happened at Cave Creek and why Cave Creek shocked the nation and three years on the families of those who lost their lives remain deeply affected how could the actions of a government Department lead directly to the deaths of 14 young people no one would be found negligent no one lost their job over it and for a long time no one resigned [Music] the people and the government of the day wanted answers a commission of inquiry was appointed it was headed by Graham Noble a district court judge from Christ Church on the first day of the hearing the Department of Conservation referred to as doc immediately accepted responsibility the commission was defined that the platform was not constructed in accordance with sound building practice this resulted in a total and catastrophic failure but the commission decided that it would be quite inappropriate to point the finger of blame at any one of the individuals judge Noble called it systemic failure the system failed to work but for most of the parents 3 years after the catastrophe it it's not a closed case I just want some honesty bought into the whole thing and I want the Jew process a law followed something can't be man-made and break and kill all those people and nothing happens they built a death trap and let our kids walk into it Cave Creek to me is was a very black day in New Zealand's history and it for us the families it hasn't got any brighter the story of Cave Creek will be forever woven in the coarse fabric of New Zealand's West Coast the coast is known for its rugged Beauty and Rich natural reserves but it's a rugged Beauty scarred with the tears of coal mining disasters lost trampers fishermen swept out to sea and townships uprooted by floods and earthquakes it's a region of small and close-knit communities Greymouth with some 13,000 people is the main town on the road South is the tyot poly Technic a simple plaque lies here remembering the students who lost their lives at Cave Creek in April 1995 this Photograph shows some of the students from that Year's outdoor recreation course Sam Lucas was thrilled to be one of them there's an outdoor recreation course looking at Outdoor Pursuits like are caving um rock climbing kaying mountaineering um do a bit of skiing in there um tramping looking at all your bush skills and then going over Theory like your risk management looking at weather interpretation um and sort of a bit of theory stuff as well first aid in 1995 there were 40 students enrolled in the course they were nicknamed The Outdoor wreckers for many it was their first time away from home [Music] most would live at the polytechnics [Music] hostel next door is the local Catholic High School where Andrew McCarthy teaches science was still okay let's put another two people set foot every year he gives a physics lesson on what went wrong at Cave Creek Andre McCarthy has good reason to pass on the lessons of Cave Creek his daughter Kathy was on the platform when it collapsed if in building you ignore the rules of physics people can die until the course Kathy had been living with her mom in P Kathy was hoping to have fun um that was what life was about Kathy and I had a lot together and the outdoors originally I can remember sort of saying come on Kathy keep going you can do it and stuff and then it sort of got to the stage where it was the other way around and Kathy was saying come on Mom you know you can do it she was a very demonstrative sort of person um we got on fairly well at times and at other times we didn't the students had come from all around New Zealand they had a variety of backgrounds but together with Kathy they shared a love of the outdoors kit pory was raised in North Canterbury on a 6,000 hectare sheep station that both his parents work went off to high school and then he really hit the system and we got to know all the discipline Masters and the Headmaster and the head of the hostel quite well because he was difficult and he just wanted to be different and he always stood out and then we took him over to the coast and and we pulled up outside the hostel in the nurse's home there and kit got out and there were all these other kids identical to kit and Harry and I sort of looked each other and thought Oh kits come home he's found his peer group when he came back for his first holidays in the May holidays about two or three weeks before the the tragedy he was a different guy he was standing tall he was he was sort of unfolded himself and he was standing his full height and he was alive JY Davis was from the capital Wellington he'd been raised most of his life by his dad Rod a lecture at Wellington Teachers College jod hated sitting still there's no way that jod would sit and watch a television program regardless of the weather like he was one of these kids if it was stormy and rainy he loved it on with the gear and he would just go out walking hiking climbing he would try just try things like just have a go at things so constantly moving Paul Chisum grew up in Christ Church one of a family of seven his dad had died of a brain tumor only four years before Cave Creek this left Carol and his mom to manage the family on her own he got in to the course right at the last minute and into the hostel the day before he went I think that was how poor was he was very impetuous quick decisions and then he was off and and then it was just everything was just fantastic he was just full of Life full of fun always always had been like that for Evan Stewart life was one big adventure growing up on a hill country sheep and cattle farm in Nelson's cable Bay provided the perfect playground he had a dream and he just wanted to get into being a hunting guide or some sort of Outdoor Pursuits yeah just love the outdoors and he he was suddenly finding he could actually do rock climbing he was good at it he used to say Mom there something I can really do he he was um a character he had good people skills and he just loved challenges he used to say that um the farm was his backyard but Nelson lak's National Park was his playground Peter Shaw grew up in wroy in Northern Haws Bay his father Andrew ran a helicopter business Peter and his dad were heavily involved in search and rescue when he left school he worked for me with the helicopter for 2 years and uh we were good mates we we did a lot together we went hunting I taught him to shoot at an early age and and he was very good at it he was op pressable really you couldn't keep him down you know he was in the local search and rescue since he was 13 and he was the youngest um team leader he had a team of his own by the time he was 18 loved the bush oh he was just adorable I mean just a really really good kid he uh never really gave us any trouble and he was kind too he was a really kind kid If he if he thought he'd upset you he would always come later on and make amends about it he was was kind the young students who quickly became great mates as the outdoor Wreckers came from closely n homes and from broken homes but as they were making the transition into adulthood they would all share a sense of coming home to a new family a family of fellow adventurers pursuing a life of challenges and risk-taking but what possible risk could there be in a simple field trip along a newly constructed [Music] walkway the beauty and diversity of the South Islands West Coast attracts thousands of tourists in each year from the famous punakaiki rocks the papa National Park stretches Inland to the Southern Alps in between a dramatic Limestone landscape Cave Creek is about 20 minutes Drive Inland from the punak Kiki [Music] rocks it's part of a deep Labyrinth of caves and underground Rivers the perfect setting for an outdoor recreation course in this rough and unpredictable terrain you're advised to keep to the Beaten Track it was to this environment that the students were taken on their April field trip as usual the students would divide into two groups A and B on Thursday the 27th of April 1995 group a left gr mouth for Cave Creek the course tutor was John skilton I was you know hoping to open their eyes make them as I doing these outdoor activities not just to focus on the activity but to focus on um the environment they were doing it in today for our benefit Les Wright a local guide is taking a group of hikers into the national park the Department of Conservation have supplied the vehicles Les will take the same route that the students went that day a kilometer north of Puna kaii you find Bullock Creek Farm Road it winds gently Eastward up the valley for about 7 km the 20-minute Drive brings you to the Bullock Creek Farm flats from here you begin a kilometer walk along the Cave Creek track James Lynch was one of the group a students that day everyone was really happy to be going somewhere somewhere that we hadn't been that we've been told was really gorgeous place I guess the feature of the day was going into the uh the Ravine the actual Cave Creek itself there's nothing here now but in April 1995 you came to a Timber viewing platform a few meters off the track to the right today a barrier keeps you well away from the edge we all sort of raced onto the platform to you know capture the view then uh Neil dropped an umbrella off the edge of the platform and so everybody of course rushed to the outside edge of it and watched it fall I guess that's when we started to notice that it was it was flexing the flexing motion of the platform gave off a slight bouncing sensation not everyone felt it nor did it worry most of those who did notice it people took it quite lightly really it was almost a bit of a joke that that it did one person who did feel the flexing was Shirley slatter the manager of the doc Visitor Center at Puna Kiki she had come along to tell the students about the area they all started bounding onto the platform this whole group of of students and they're quite big I mean they're fully grown adults and they all bounded on oh I haven't had this many people on here before it's just a wooden structure you know it's like a wooden Bridge um and they started oh hey what happens if we jump and they started jumping up and down and I got a bit of a fright at that and I could see sort of had these big long prongs that stuck out and I could see the front one just sort of wavering in the wind a little bit and I hadn't seen that before so I said oh hey guys half on at a time I think and no jumping she was sufficiently concerned to mention the matter to John skilton the poly Technic tutor well I didn't notice anything myself at all and I was on the platform the whole time later back at puni Shirley slatter also reported her concerns to her boss Steven OD day that night I went back and I told Steven OD day about it just asked him if he would come out and see what he thought because he was a bit more experienced I didn't know anything about wood Steven oday had recently taken over as the manager of the punuk Kiki Field Center he was due to travel North the next day for his son's 8ighth birthday instead he postponed and agreed to come with the group B students to see what Shirley did and have a look at the platform so apart from this brief but significant moment the moment when Shirley slatter noticed the viewing platform Flex the day for group a passed smoothly the next day Friday April 28th was group B's turn the day held great promise for the group which included Leanne wheeler and Sam Luc cuz we left Tech at about 9:00ish I guess and just cruised up everyone was happy beautiful day it was such a beautiful day that when it's sunny on the coast it's just like it's awesome you could see all the way up the coast and the waves all coming in I remember Paul Chism was sitting in the back and you know how you go up the road there's all those big Cliffs and stuff up the side I remember him talking about how he was going to climb them and you know he was going to get to the top of those one day Annie had the van in second gear and she didn't realiz it was deep as it was and she switched down to First halfway through and she sto it so we're sitting in the middle of this puddle not going anywhere and she sat in the car and laughed and giggled away and John climbed over the over the front and hooked up a rope and we pulled them out today Sam Lucas is once again walking the Cave Creek track from this point on Sam doesn't remember what happened Leanne will never forget so then we walked up to the top of the hill and we kind of congregated at the top of the hill that's there that's kind of the last time that we're a group that we were sort of all all hanging out together and because of a sore knee Leanne would fall behind the main group while further up the track surely slatter would also separate from the students I slipped and I twisted my ankle and I had this urge to go and relieve myself so I said I was right at the front of the group at that stage so I asked um Steve day and John if they could carry on while I ducked off into the bushes tutor John skilton continued with the party but when they arrived adjacent to the platform he too went into the bushes to make a comfort stop I went off to to Rel myself probably about 10 m you know 20 m 30 m away from the actual platform doc manager Steven OD day and 17 students walked on to the platform [Music] and um it's just this [Music] Almighty Indescribable noise [Music] really [Music] none of the remaining five could see the platform fall although they were only meters away we kind of ran a few steps and almost immediately everyone all five of us that went on the platform were sort of in the same place at the same time I just couldn't believe it there was nothing there everything had gone there was the piles and the stairs and nothing no sign of anybody we were kind of like what's happened you know what's going on and we could see the steps there we had we knew something had been there and and John could basically just sort of say oh there's a platform here platform it's sort of falling it was quite obvious to shy and I what had happened but it wasn't so obvious to the other students who were accompanying us because they hadn't seen the platform before so I don't think they initially understood what had happened but I did [Music] in all 18 young men and women crashed 30 m to the bottom of Cave [Music] Creek only four were to survive one of them was Sam Lucas yeah well I come back here and I sort of go down to where the platform was and you sort of look out there and you think that's really weird that such I guess a big moment of my life has happened at the spot and I don't remember a thing you know you try to recall stuff and you think I don't want to remember this anyway so you just let it go and it's you know it's fine I broke both my radius and oner my elbow and my left um which which required a plate of my owner and some wise my elbow and then I broke my jaw in two or three places broke a few teeth and then I did my ligaments in my right knee and and bashed my my other knee Stacy Mitchell was the luckiest Survivor incredibly he escaped without Serious injury as the others fell off the platform and ahead of it he held on to the rails and effectively surfed the platform to the bottom it started to sway and then it sort of it tilted forward and everyone fell forward and started screaming but then it fell after there there's no way anyone could get off it Caroline Smith fell but remained conscious she broke her leg in three places Steven Hannon is the fourth Survivor he was so badly hurt he was lucky to live Steven received breaks to his legs arms ribs and jaw in three places a ruptured bowel collapsed lung and smashed vertebrae which all added up to incomplete tetr aleia since the tragedy he spent 16 months in hospital and has had over 10 operations physically he's nothing like the fit young man who went off to typoon poly [Music] Technic something that told me for a long time that I was paralyzed and that I probably never walk again as was a tetrolic and I'd never play sport again I think I got B sort of with Ching for quite a while while Steven narrowly escaped death 14 others would not be so fortunate Radio New Zealand news good evening I'm Peter fry the death toll from the collapse of a viewing platform on the west coast today could rise 15 young people are dead after the platform at Cave Creek Inland from punik collapsed plunging them 30 m down a cliff face the hospital still trying to contact relatives of the dead and injured mostly teenagers from the tatini poly Technic in greymar the news just came on and the first first thing I heard was them say that there had been this accident down the west coast and that they actually said 15 people had died at that stage I think Peter was the sort of kid that if if he'd been okay that he would have moved Heaven and Earth to to phone us to let us know and I just kept praying all the way home that I'd get a phone call on the car phone to say that it wasn't true till 9:00 at night we were trying to find out information and waiting for these promised phone calls which never came I rang the police again and they wouldn't tell me anything and said to ring the hospital so I rang the hospital and I got hold of a woman there who this this was about 8:00 at night by then and um she said she couldn't say anything officially but not not to hold out too much hope and the phone just people were ringing saying have you heard and we couldn't tell them that he was dead or alive and I said is K alive or is he dead can you please tell tell me and he said you haven't been told and I said no I haven't been told um I said K is dead is he he just said that they had a person that they thought was Steven OD day and would I be prepared to identify him and yeah there were three things I think that told me that was real and one was the voice Betty's voice when she rang up and said there's been this awful accident one was when um oh the minister who was ringing up the people he you could hear the grave sound in his voice and the other one was when the um Undertaker came around and he was going through the things and you think this is real so that was uh yeah three those three things sort of stood out once we'd found out he was dead we I just wanted to get everything going as arrangements for this funeral quickly and and the minister said do you want them cremated or buried and I just broke down I just I just collapsed on the floor and and I ha the hardest part for me was telling M that her son was dead my whole life just went to Pieces really um all these terrible facts just came out and I had a breakdown then it just all caved and on top of me it it was hard to accept that they' gone you know so quickly they were so vibrant they were so full of life and they were such a fine group of young people you think now it's bad dream it'll all go away you know somebody's tricking you yeah he's going to walk in the door no not to be the next day the parents started arriving in Greymouth for some it was important to see where their children had died they made the heartbreaking walk into Cave Creek we walked in where they walked and we walked to the platform where they walked but when we got to the platform it wasn't there and that was one of the most shocking things finding the insubstantial ability of it and we locked it up and we had our farming friends with us and we we just locked and everyone shot their heads and where are the BS where are the where are the supports where's the counterweight where we couldn't believe that someone like Doc would do something like that what had gone wrong who was to blame how could doc a government Department allow such a thing to happen many families attended the commission of inquiry they would be stunned as they listened to the evidence and heard Blow by blow exactly what happened Christ Church lawyer Grant Cameron represented the victims the survivors and the immediate families with every passing day in court there were New Revelations if you like and it had an ongoing emotional trauma for the families of considerable magnitude Wellington Barrister Hugh Reni QC represented the department of con obervation I think with the Dock Workers people understood in the commission of inquiry how difficult it was for the families and for the survivors um I don't think many people actually saw the network which we had to um set up in respect of the doc workers when they came to give evidence and we would have people sitting with them the day before we would have people ready to gather them up afterwards we'd have people to take them away they they were um in least uh as stressed a state um as those who came from the side of the victims the inquiry revealed just how the platform was built the idea behind it was simple along with the boardwalks and tracks it would be part of what the department called A Long Walk Through The bulock Creek Farm area the concept was to provide easier access to the Wilderness while protecting the environment and ensuring Public Safety the long walk on the platform at Cave Creek with a brainchild of this man Kevin wild Doc's Northern operations manager for the west coast and his Nelson counterpart Trevor worthy the idea was commendable but from this point on the design and execution of the platform Project Read like a cautionary tail Kevin wild handed the task down to the manager of the punak Kiki Field Center Craig Murdoch Murdoch knew the platform was to be erected in a vulnerable place but he had never been involved with the construction of a platform before nor did he recognize the need for specialist input Murdoch delegated the job of preparing the plans for the platform to a conservation worker Les Van djk van djk was not an engineer nor even a carpenter he was a motor mechanic by trade commissioner judge Noble would find that van djk did his best to carry out a task for which he was not qualified He was unaware of that and he ought never to have been put in that position he was asked to do something that he shouldn't have done shouldn't have been asked he did his best and he came up with a plan which if it had been Faithfully followed kit and the others would still be alive today Kevin wild Craig Murdoch and Les van djk three of the men most closely involved in the concept and design of the Cave Creek viewing platform all declined to appear in this film by early November 1992 Les van djk had finished his plans Kevin wild approved them on November the 5th wild did so without referring the plans to a professional engineer indeed at the time it was not general practice to do so so over the next few weeks Les van djk built the wooden decking and railings at the Puna Kiki Workshop in December a helicopter carried the pre-fabricated decking to Cave Creek but despite the project being well underway no one had addressed the question of a building [Music] consent on New Year's Day 1993 the new building act came into effect from this day on the building act compelled government departments such as doc to apply to a local Authority for a building permit a building would include any structure which if it collapsed would result in a person falling more than 1 meter in June 1992 all managers were sent a memo outlining changes to the building act but the project manager of Cave Creek Craig Murdoch thought the memo referred to buildings like visitor centers and Huts not platforms Gary Reid is a Christ Church Chopper pilot when he's not flying he spends hours pouring over documents trying to comprehend the disaster which killed his daughter Dean who at 16 years old was the youngest student on the course it's interesting to note that they maintain ignorance of the building consent process and the resource management act but the evidence would show that the northern manager his region extended right up to the seal Colony north of Westport Cape F and and he successfully built platforms and he used the building consent process and the resource management act correctly and yet a few months later when he goes to Cave Creek he claims ignorance of these rules and regulations at the time of Cave Creek Hugh Logan was Doc's Regional conservator for Nelson today he's in Wellington as Doc's top man the director General the department at the time failed to recognize the implications of the building act for the whole breadth of its um its operations the fact that the building of the consents were required was recognized within the department but instructions um to to adhere to that were not pushed down far enough within the organization [Music] so as 1993 got underway and the building act came into force it should have been clear that the Cave Creek platform required a building consent but no one on the west coast who knew anything about the project gave any thought to applying for one and this was just one of a series of oversights and Dreadful misunderstandings [Music] for 4 months from December 1992 the prefabricated platform and other building materials just sat under canvas at Cave Creek then on the 22nd and 23rd of April 1993 a couple of so-called working days were planned in the paparoa National Park doc office staff could work in the field helping with track maintenance and clearing 18 staff turned up they were arranged into groups and given a number of tasks including track clearing and the building of steps one group of four was given the important job of setting in the piles and bearers and assembling the viewing platform the four were Kevin wild the boss of Doc's Northern Region on the west coast Mark Davis a mining officer with experience in blasting Colin mqueen a laborer a self-described jack of all trades and Graham Quinn a conservation officer who had completed a carpentry apprenticeship as for lesv Van djk the man who designed the platform and had already built the decking for some reason he was assigned to another group upgrading the track always remain a mystery to me why the person who designed that Les vanand Dyk was not allowed to complete the job and I got the impression this was L this big thing in life this was this big project and um I'm sure in my mind that he had been allowed to build that complete that construction of that platform that everybody be alive today Not only was Van dijk excluded from the platform construction party no one consulted his plans beforehand and no one took them to the site van djk thinks he would have given a said to mqueen but can't recall for certain mqueen says he was never aware there were plans and doesn't recall ever seeing them Van Dyk claims he did discuss the plans with wild wild says it was possible but he's certain he was never given plans to take to the site in the event no plans were on site indeed Mark Davis told the commission not much was discussed about the way the platform was to be built so how did the four men go about the job we asked engineer Philip cook to supervise the construction of a full-size version of the platform to demonstrate exactly why it failed Philip's sister and Marie died at Cave Creek we used the same materials Timber decking Timber handrails there was Timber bearers and Timber joist as well fence post were for the piles two registered Master Builders and some engineering students carried out the project on the lawn at the ockland unitech carefully following the sequence of events as outlined in the commission of inquiry our team quickly discovered the major flaws to start with there was no drill so they couldn't use the bolts to secure the piles to the bearers the bolts were left lying on the ground and Nails Only were used also missing were the lengths of Steel that van djk had ordered to secure the platform to the concrete counterweight the steel never made it to the site and disappeared altogether no plan for the precise location of the piles was prepared no grid was laid out on the ground mqueen explained that the pile driving depended on the nature of the ground adjustments had to be made to work around rocks and tree roots they never used any form of string line Spirit levels everything was done by I they started ramming the First Foundation Pile in and where I've described the Bank was cut away underneath this first Foundation pile went straight through the Earth and came out the other side so if they kept they stopped hammering of course if they' kept hammering it where the pile would have gone straight through and down 100 ft and they've ended up with three piles across the front because of the ground was as it was Rocky and tree roots and that all around they placed the piles as they saw F none of them are in a straight line it's a point that Andrew McCarthy makes clear in his physic lesson on Cave Creek and we're having a look at how the piles were set up yes right slightly skew with so you want it like that in order to attach the bearers to the piles they use Packers to create a straight line and I've used 100 Mil nails to go right through the front Bureau board the Packer and into the pile the nail came barely 1 or 2 mm into the pile so the joint was just was useless now in pile P1 it wasn't put in line there's a length of the nail that's where the head of the nail goes to that's at best but look what happened if you don't nail it in the right place can you see that there it will soon work its way out here's probably the way of doing the piles cut it in put a bolt in and although it appears to be wobbly because of the thickness of the bolt and the way it's attached it'll be a lot stronger with the Bears attach the piles were trimmed to an even height the work to this point took most of the first day the next day the pre-fabricated platform was assembled on top of the piles and again 100 Mil nails were used they decided on the amount of caner lever by pushing boards in and out as to how much you could see down of the view below and that's how they arrived at their caner lever so there was no mathematical tables or weights and measures nothing they just decided it out of their heads Kevin wild and Mark Davis also spent part of the second day digging a trench at the back of the platform while while the others finished off the decking and handrails the idea was to come back another day and build a set of concrete steps which would be attached to the platform by bolts Davis told the commission I thought that the platform was going to be bolted onto the counterweight when the counterweight was poured there was no discussion about how this was going to be done the building of the concrete counterweight was to be completed later in fact it would be a year later in the meantime the four platform Builders finished their handiwork walked out onto the end of the platform and had this photograph taken they obviously didn't realize just how unsafe the platform was without the counterweight it looked good you could you could look at it on the surface and you it looked reasonable to to the eye standing out in the bush underneath the connections are were are frightening everybody accepts that that platform was badly built but why didn't anybody go back and check to see if it was safely built how could it be that a you have a government Department that doesn't actually check to see the structure is safe before you advertise for public use to test the strength of our platform we loaded it with rubbish bins we filled these with water to achieve the weight equal to the 18 people who fell at Cave Creek remember our platform was made with the same material and the same specifications The Cave Creek platform differed slightly in that it was lightly attached with nails to the concrete steps which were eventually poured after half an hour we would reach the weight of only 10 [Music] people it was slow 29 minutes but the actual failure occurred in in half a second was frightening this the speed of it the term was put on it that it was the number eight wire thinking of new zealanders but if they' had one bit of number eight wire on that platform it would have stayed there um most people would just automatically build a thing a lot stronger than what it was the commissioner judge Noble would find that not one of the men who built the pl platform fell below the standard of care required of them Grant Cameron has his own opinion I can't accept the view that people fell or did not fall below the level of care required of them uh as regards their particular jobs there is ample evidence to show that individuals fell below the standard of care expected of them and in overall terms there was a lot of negligence part of why judge Noble um felt that they had not Fallen below a standard was that they were trying to achieve a safe standard they they weren't Reckless or uncaring or trying to get the job over so they could go to the pub or anything like that they were trying to do their very best they might have thought they were doing a good job and they had the best of intentions but in in reality what they built was a disaster the people who were responsible should have all been penalized in some way I didn't want people prosecuted for man slaughter or anything like that but I think if you're working for an organization and you underperform or perform as badly as they did there should be some form of censure you should lose your job that's what would happen in private Enterprise Dr Alan Ray an independent engineering consultant examined the platform construction for the commission and made this model to illustrate how the platform failed when the weight of the people was on the platform the main load was hanging out here over the cliff face and the initial a failure occurred on the joint from the beer to pile P9 which failed and Shear allowing the beer to slide down the face of the pile The Joint to pile 10 then failed followed by the connection to pile 11 allowing that whole front Bearer to slide down that face following the the failure of the front section the connection between the platform and this Bearer and the connection into the top section of the steps which again were nails that connection line started to fail this allowed the platform to rotate about this Central Bearer line and slides down the face Dr Ray pointed out how the platform would have been stronger without the second row of piles what did the second row of piles have the effect of doing in the event of failure at the front it made a fulcrum which flicked it off the back and gave it a far steeper angle and then the whole platform slid into the [Music] Cavin for an entire year from April 1993 to 1994 the uncompleted platform at Cave Creek just sat there its concrete counterweight had still not been poured it was open to any tramper who cared to step out onto it and there would be two official visits during the year in September 1993 the department of conservation's West Coast conservator Bruce Watson took the Local District Council Council on a tour a few of the group walked onto the platform one of those in the district council party Fran o Connell was apparently heard to make a light-hearted remark about whether the necessary building consents had been obtained this remark raises the issue of whether the council had some responsibility to then check the legality of the platform I think the bullet District Council uh has some responsibility in a negative sense I I don't think you can actually put your finger on anything they did and say that it was necessarily wrong but had they been rather more active in looking at structures and um looking at the compliance issue uh then clearly we wouldn't be in the situation that Cave Creek got into Frank O Connell denies making any comment about building consense the matter remains unresolved in April 1994 a full year after the platform was erected the odd jobber Colin McQueen was asked to finish the job and pour the concrete steps he had no supervision no plans and no instructions to use steel to attach the concrete to the platform besides there was no Steel on site he didn't understand why he was putting this lump of concrete there hence the concrete was not strapped to the platform it was just there as steps mqueen told the commission I believe that we had fixed the structure adequately and securely to the piles I did not see the pouring of the concrete as integral to the safety of the whole system it seems mqueen never wondered what the concrete was for as it was he finished the job by covering the steps with wooden decking the commission of inquiry had this to say on mqueen although I found his credibility on the issue of why the concrete was poured to be problematic on balance I conclude that he probably did not think about this it was no part of Mr mulqueen's Duty he never had the steel he didn't know the steel was to go there what he was told to do was to go up on one work day and put Timber together he was told on another day to go up and pour concrete he did those things the man instructing mqueen was Craig Murdoch the Puna kakei Field Center manager judge Noble found while Murdoch was supposed to have been project manager he did not know that he thought mistakenly in the absence of the requisite knowledge that Mr mqueen was capable of building a safe structure from Doc's point of view the job was now finished but the platform had no building consent no engineering report and no one had made a safety check then in July 1994 3 months after the platform was completed there was a second official visit the West Coast typol conservation board made a trip to cave Creek the issue of consent would be [Music] raised the board was accompanied by Bruce Watson Kevin wild and Craig Murdoch the chairman of the board was Bruce Hamilton after a brief tour of the area they gathered at the platform for afternoon tea the question was asked as to um by a board member as to whether or not there was a um building consent for the platform and I do recall quite clearly the um look of displeasure on the um face of Bruce Watson the conservator when being told that um it had not been um at that stage um obtained Bruce Watson then spoke to both Kevin wild and Craig Murdoch asking that they check the necessary consents had been sought and that followup action be taken they did follow up to begin with but a few months later when the district bullet Council advised that retrospective consents could not be obtained the application was filed away the commission found the regional conservator Bruce Watson to be very experienced hardworking and competent perhaps he should have followed up the building consent issue but in a properly structured system that should not in my view be the responsibility of the regional conservator then in late January 1995 a warning signed that had been ordered for the platform arrived the man who ordered it was away on holiday in his absence the sign was tied away and forgotten the commission of inquiry cleared all of the Department's workers of any individual responsibility for the platform collapse but as for the Department the catalog of errors and oversight speaks for itself mistake number one no building consent m mistake number two designer poorly qualified mistake number three design faulty mistake number four steel missing mistake number five no plans used mistake number six designer leftt out of Construction Group mistake number seven Builders poorly qualified mistake number eight piles not aligned correctly mistake number nine no bolts used mistake number 10 bearers badly nailed to piles mistake number 11 platform never attached to counterweight mistake number 12 loading sign lost 11:25 on Friday morning the upper viewing platform at Cave Creek with 18 people on it has plunged 30 m into a boulder strewn Ravine a Department of Conservation worker a poly Technic tutor and three students are left to cope at that point we knew there was at least one Survivor because someone was calling out um which just amazed me actually that there was going you know that would be someone would be conscious it's decided that Shirley slatter will take student Mark trainer and run out to the vehicles to radio for help tutor John skilton will go to the bottom of the gorge with students Darren Gamble and lean wheeler I me to Daren Le that that they need to be prepared for some fairly horrific scenes and it wasn't going to be very nice just kind of kep moving our way knew we're getting closer all the whole time hearing people yelling still screaming all those kind of noises still still going on and so you know that people are alive I never ever considered the possibility that people would be dead we got closer and we could see the platform resting on the rocks and that snap and time of like seeing almost the reality of what you're dealing with it's just like and then the whole thing kind of switch for me like okay you've got to deal with this Shirley and Mark reached the vehicles at A4 to 12 so then we got back to the vehicles and I discovered that Steven had taken the keys with him and you had to have the keys on to get the radio to go so I got there and I had a perfectly serviceable vehicle in fact I had three vehicles not one of them had a set of keys to them they were all unlocked we get into them and we couldn't use the radio Shirley then asked Mark to run the 7 km gravel road to the nearest house she had the presence of mind to write him this note this is an emergency we have 15 people approximately seriously injured we need helicopters scoop Nets Medics crash Nets and Manpower we are at Cave Resurgence top platform collapsed 100t drop soon after Mark left on foot Shirley met two cists she quickly sent them in pursuit of Mark someone someone came and yelled out to me and I I asked him I thought they might have had a message as well and they said no he just gave me the bike Mark was now able to complete the dash to the main road on the bike it was A4 12 when he reached the house of John forest and dialed 111 Mark was too exhausted and stressed to finish the call Forest took over reading Shirley slatter's note for him it was 50 minutes since the platform collapsed the West Coast rescue systems went onto full alert a rescue helicopter from Christ Church would soon be on its way an Air Force iry was dispatched with a team of four Medics three fire engines and a local Rescue Team would also be sent meanwhile John Darren and Leanne arrived at the bottom of Cave Creek well our first site was just a platform on the ground then suddenly Stacy kind of stood up in the background and I just you know that was just amazing that someone could was actually standing up walking around I was sitting up and I was just having look around I couldn't take in that much at the time I was I was faing shocked and then John the tutor asked me to come down and sit next to Caroline talk to her Caroline was screaming loudly and she wanted us to get her out now you know that's basically what she was get me out of here you know help help and Scotty also was screaming and basically telling us the same thing the space is very small and we're dealing with 18 people so it was difficult to move around without stepping on people I guess most of the dead and dying had fallen forward ahead of the platform and had crashed onto and between the huge rocks the platform had landed on top of them a fraction of a second later this sketch was made by Leanne wheeler for the commission it shows the scene as she remembers it so leing people were crammed in the small hole with a platform on top so it was quite difficult to get under there and actually get get two people we didn't know what to do with people where to put them it was um physically and emotionally very difficult after a few minutes I think we had quite a good little team going with Darren and I in doing the initial checking and trying to move people and then Le I'm checking up on what we' done and trying to comfort those that were conscious when I took someone's pulse and it wasn't there so the first time in my life after taking many pulses doing first aid courses and stuff there's not one it's it's not there and kind of the reality of something like that kind of hits you now during the next hour they sorted the living from the dead untangled the bodies and gave what Aid they could to the survivors it was a a creeping sense of helplessness as we realized that we were going to be could be there for quite some time um and some that you know the people were in state and injured or beyond what we could offer immediately in first in terms of first aid we started writing lists of people's names and so the reality started heading of all these people that we written under no pulse was such a big proportion such a huge chunk and that several other people that were still alive would they still be alive one dog worker and 11 of Leanne's friends lay dead while six were still alive kit pory was unconscious and breathing badly he would die before help could arrive Scott Murray was lying facing Caroline Smith and asking to be freed he was very agitated four bodies had to be lifted to free him an hour after the platform crash Shirley slatter arrived back with the clothing from the vehicles and I remember coming in I was feeling pretty and my leagues were like jelly you know sort of going down whole hiest and just feeling really nervous about going down the end Shirley expressed concern for her boss Steven OD day and John came over he saw me and he came over and I said to him you know where's Steve I need to get the keys off him and um he said oh I'm sorry Steve's dead so then it was sort of all right then and you just sort of I guess autopilot takes over you bring the mask down and you push all your emotions away and just go and do you did and one of my probably my best friend there was Annie and she was actually the last person that I saw and if I lost the plot at any point that would have been it she was at the bottom I guess she was the least pretty of anyone she's the person that scared me the most of how she looked and stuff and knowing that for a second that she could never be alive and if she was I wouldn't want her to be because of how she was and um yeah and at that point point I just wanted to basically bore you know and I just an hour and a half had passed there was still no sign of help they started to wonder if the message had even got through where is help why aren't they here we need someone we can't do this by ourselves and we didn't know anything we were no doctors we were no medical experts and just trying to almost be there in some ways Darren gamble was about to set off with a second message when Chris Cowan's helicopter arrived overhead it was such a big relief when someone was there knowing that that someone was there to help us cuz it seemed like forever it seemed so long before anyone got there um up to that point you know we it was just waiting um so to see him arrive on the scene and know that someone of his you know local knowledge and competence he was there was a great kind of relief it was 10 1 100 minutes after the platform collapsed but no medical help had arrived John and Shirley still had to make life and death decisions as to who should be airlifted out first it was a tossup between Scotty and uh Sam so in the end we decided Sam was probably in our opinion the worst engine we put him on the stretch turn and it was so noisy the helicopter made such a big noise that we ended up taking the stretcher off the strap and sending the helicopter away so we were sort of down there trying to sort this out ourselves not really knowing even how the stretcher works and what we're supposed to strap on or anything we decided we'd fly Scotty out next and he started to get quite agitated he's getting quite noisy and loud and um not very happy and so yeah I was up with Steve and I turned around and he'd stopped breathing I think we all just better stop breathing then Scott Murray never revived the second to be airlifted was Caroline Smith she had a badly broken leg it was now 2:00 next to be stretched out by helicopter was Stacy Mitchell the first of The Rescuers were now on the scene and one of them assisted Leanne wheeler out exhausted and very distressed because of spinal injuries Steven Hannon had to wait until Medics arrived before he could be airlifted out by the Air Force iroy at halfast 2 just over 3 hours after the platform collapsed Shirley and John would walk the 40-minute track out for the first time they would be able to think about what had happened I mean they were my students I was responsible for their safety that's that's how I that's how I work and um you know that's how I felt when I left there so I knew that we just gone hadn't ended we were just going from one situation to another whatever that was going to be and I've also had still had Darren and Leanne and Mark to look after um and you know subsequently um yeah we were on our own still until late into the evening on on that night I mean we still didn't have any there was no one coming along and holding our hand I mean that was you know um or from anywhere the day was long it was a really long day we didn't get back to Greymouth until 7:00 at night so much at the center of a tragedy and not realizing it not realizing that so many people knew and so many people would be affected and just I didn't understand at all had no concept of how big it was or what had actually happened or anything like that it took 3 hours for the police and rescue teams to airlift out the 14 dead bodies by4 6 the dead had been moved to a temporary morg set up at the grave B hospital it took until 8:00 for all the bodies to be formally identified only now could the parents be notified 8 and 1/2 hours after the tragedy had [Music] occurred [Music] Saturday April 29th 1995 it's the morning after the tragedy and the close-knit community of Greymouth is in shock the director general of the Department of Conservation Bill Mansfield and Simon Upton the acting minister of conservation visit the scene of the tragedy the police investigation is already well underway on Monday morning prime minister Jim bger was among the hundreds of mourners who attended the memorial service for the victims that day the government announced a commission of inquiry it began hearing evidence on the 11th of July and was to go through to the end of September I went across the um GR to H to the inquiry with had the genuine sort of um desire to know what had happened I thought it be all done with the day in might neity that um yes who would go through it and everybody would have the um the willingness to sort of share and see what happened and stop it ever happening again I had thought once again naively that the basis of the inquiry would look at issues to do with not just what went wrong and why but who was to blame and um people were very quick to say say the families don't want this to happen again well for me that was implicit that's like you know the captain of the Titanic saying we won't go near that Iceberg again right at the very start of the inquiry doc through their um lawyer hini accepted responsibility they couldn't do anything else cuz it was quite obvious they' built the platform the platform fell down so they were responsible but then they spent the rest of the inquiry trying to not accept blame it became about funding it became about re structuring and I thought to myself um this has be to come going to become a lot bigger than than what it started out as it started out as a tragedy it's now going to enter the political Arena the commission's terms of reference included reporting on the causes of the collapse the design and construction of the platform the competence of those responsible and the level of inspections following construction as well it to report on whether those involved acted lawfully properly and competently the commission was later extended to inquire into the rescue operation it wasn't going to be a simple little inquiry it was complex and if we're going to get anywhere um this was going to take it a pretty much a determined effort to make sure that step by step by step the sins of a mission were covered and those people who were guilty of that admission were located I guess in a way an inquiry is a very cunning way of um diverting the whole notion of things going wrong particularly in a corporate agency a government agency while Grant Cameron would put forward that individuals should be found negligent at both head office and Field Center levels heni Council for Doc would present the concept of systemic failure to explain the tragedy the submission that I put to the commissioner was that uh Cave Creek was the result of systemic failure each person had brought their small contribution of error or inappropriate timing or whatever it was each in themselves quite minor um but cumulatively disastrous the commission delivered its report on the 10th of November good evening The Cave Creek inquiry named no names but it pointed the finger of blame squarely at the government and the conserv Minister commissioner judge Noble would find that the department acted unlawfully but the named individuals did not the department did not act in a competent and appropriate manner nor did its nominated staff members but all the while they were working within a system that was fatally flawed I conclude that it would be quite inappropriate to point the finger of blame at any one of the individuals it is uniquely an Institutional failure the Striking feature of the inquiry is that not one of the individuals concerned was ever aware of the appropriate standards to be met simply because no such set of Standards was in place it was this lack of a proper system that caused the Cave Creek platform to fall with such tragic consequences nobody was actually named and found to be wanting except the whole department and that and as such judge Noble had government being um it to blame for the whole Saga you you couldn't actually see something tangible happening like a jail sentence a fine prosecutions of some sort so there was always this feeling that it was never completed under the concept of systemic failure everyone collectively at Doc was to blame no individual was truly accountable systemic failure was an outcome that would provoke journalist grahe hunt to write a book called scandal at Cave Creek gram hunt was the first to publicly tackle the issue of mismanagement at senior levels within the department well there is no such thing as systemic failure this is sort of a word game that judge Noble came up with you know systems only fail because people er um or in some instances there might be an active God it might be volcanic eruption or earthquake none of that at all this was completely avoidable quite clearly systems don't um they aren't created by themselves they don't maintain themselves they are operated and maintained by people so the question is who created the system who had the obligation to oversee it and who is responsible for its failure for the parents the concept of systemic failure has been hard to accept we were sort of suddenly dealing with us a morphous mass known as systems and uh yet we were very clear who the individ ual were who were involved in it it's quite clear it came out in the inquiry both from those who built it both from those who should have checked it and the orders that were being followed and who should have been overseeing it and then it led right back for me quite um logically in sequence back to head office as to the people who put these systems in place so I expected the next stage to be then naming those people but that that's where it stopped short the inquiry stopped at that point prosecutions were very unlikely after commissioner judge Noble found that no single individual fell below a standard of care occupational safety and health is one government Department that can prosecute in cases such as Cave Creek after their investigation they decided that management systems were deficient to the extent that the employees concerned really didn't have the opportunity to perform at the required safe level the other department which could prosecute is the police former detective Kevin Burrows was in charge of their investigation he's still surprised no individuals were prosecuted it's hard to believe again this is my personal opinion that no person or nobody has been held accountable for that um structure collapsing because as I said to me it was a disgrace so why no police prosecutions the police report was forwarded to the solicitor general John McGrath it was his decision not to proceed I find the actions of the Crown Law Office inexplicable in terms of the evidence uh on my file and certainly revealed to the commission of inquiry uh there should have been prosecutions of quite a wide range of people and that would have included people at the very highest levels within the department some of the families still dissatisfied by the result considered private prosecution we feel that if we take the government to court obviously the government's got the taxpayers funds to dip into and they will just stretch it out From Here to Eternity they simply didn't have the we withth all to possibly contemplate a prosecution of that magnitude and quite plainly it isn't their obligation or responsibility it is the Crown's obligation to pursue prosecutions of this nature and that's what should have happened and all the evidence that I heard um and saw I don't believe any attempt to prosecute anybody would have been successful but if judge Noble found that the the Department of Conservation had acted unlawfully why wasn't the department prosecuted quite simply it's not possible to prosecute a government Department in this way and here the commission recommended a dramatic change that the crown no longer be exempt from prosecution under the likes of the building Act and the health and safety and Employment Act it's the one part of the noble report which hasn't been implemented and it's now 3 years since the accident and one relative ly simple law change has still got to be carried out and as far as I can see with the letters I've been writing that no action has been taken as yet to change the law doc the department which admitted full responsibility for building a faulty platform and killing 14 people was never penalized this has caused a deep sense of [Music] Injustice [Music] the release of the commission's report would bring an end to the prospects of individual prosecutions so who or what was responsible for the systemic failure of Doc it's got to at the end of the day come back to well who decided on these systems who put them in place they did not appear magically the systems and that certainly back to head office my personal view there had been grave errors uh committed at head office level and that there wasn't a full understanding of management disciplines and how they should apply to an organization of this size head office certainly some people up there possibly made mistakes some people locally made mistakes but most of all it was an expression of making less go further most of all it was an expression of what has happened politically in this country since 1988 of expecting people to do more with less and sometimes you come a guts on that when the noble report was released many expected the resignations of docs director General Bill Mansfield and conservation Minister Dennis Marshall I think in my in my position it would be after a lot of reflection I might add the soft way out for me uh to away we've got a lot of work to do people in other governments resign over silly little things but this was this was huge although Bill Mansfield had been director general of Doc for 5 years the state Services report on Cave Creek would exonerate his performance as a manager he also chose to stay on in order to put things right I certainly don't think that the chief executive should have been praised as one of the top Chief Executives in the country and been told that he had performed and his phys in an exemplary fashion that was that was insulting when the department that he was in charge of had just broken the law and killed 14 people as a result every day that bill Mansfield stayed in that job and went to work for this family was like driving the knife deeper I could not understand how this man had decided that he was indispensable that quired him at the helm when in fact the worst possible thing that could ever happen is the loss of life surely regardless of your job yet he stayed on Bob Gregory is a senior lecturer in public policy and administration at Victoria University he studied Cave Creek in terms of political responsibility in the history of New Zealand government and public administration I think Cave Creek is quite unprecedented there's never be before been a case in which people have died as a direct consequence of the incompetence of government officials I I think that the lesson to be learned is that a tragedy of the sort does demand a response and I believe the proper time for that response was after judge Noble's report was released late in 1995 my own personal belief is that both the minister and the chief executive ought to have resigned I don't think that um symbolic gestures in that sense help very much I think that if you got everybody together and got over the initial uh feeling of Revenge which is what everybody always wants like it or not you want revenge the next thing they'd want is that they'd want to know that it was fixed that want to know it wouldn't happen again but on the other hand uh as's a failure of responsibility to make sure that it didn't happen in the first place and the act of atonement through resignation is necessary and whoever takes over uh from the person who's resigned that person quite clearly has the responsibility to ensure that it won't happen again the only Act of reconciliation the parents were to receive was the resignation of Doc's West Coast conservator Bruce Watson the Conservancy needs a fresh start and also as a guesture of reconciliation to those who were affected in any way at all by Cave Creek having set through all the the hearings and things the PE the parents who were there all the time built up their feelings about the people and the one person who resigned Bruce Watson we was the one that we really felt he hadd done his job thoroughly and he was doing the decent thing but he didn't need to resign because he'd done his job honestly about a year after the tragedy Dennis Marshall would resign although he would remain a full member of cabinet I believe it's an appropriate time for me to step down from my role as minister of conservation and then in January 1997 Bill Mansfield also resigned I was not uh pushed I haven't been asked to resign uh it's always been my intention to see the change process through to its completion in the case of the CH chief executive I believe the gesture was too late and it also appeared to be taken Under Pressure I don't can't say that it was but that certainly was the public perception to to some extent so I think overall uh there was too little too late and I think it's certainly too late now and the ultimate outcome has been a failure of political responsibility and we left with the impression that uh government departments as impersonal systems can virtually do what they like to citizens in this country uh even cause their deaths directly Bill Mansfield considered carefully whether he would appear in this program in the end he decided it would be inappropriate and unnecessary so 3 years on what impact has Cave Creek had on the Department of Conservation since Cave Creek the department has been reorganized based on the best private sector and in my opinion International advice for an operational organization we've been structured now with clear lines of accountability um we've placed more people in the field we're giving a uh we have absolutely overhauled our systems we have as I said reorganized the structure we've given a new sense of purpose to staff and we have um upskilled staff at a field level and are continuing that process it's quite clear in the uh contracts for public servants that have been introduced this year in fact the one I have that faced with a similar event and similar circumstances absolutely similar circumstances my resignation is not only required it will be given Cave Creek has become a memorial to those who lost their [Music] lives each of the parents has had to find their own way in dealing with the loss of their child we actually took stoning off the cable Bay beach with ev's name on it and left it at the side and it was it was actually like a little pilgrimage for us taking Evan's um little stone that we had with his name engraved on it off our patch of the world and to take it there and place it where he died yes I feel that just because he died we didn't stop loving him and I'll always love him he's my son my eldest son whose baby I ever had so he'll always be that special person for me we we're working hard at letting them go and allowing ourselves to move on and to have a healthy attitude to his death it's something that you work at Daily and I wish I could say it was over but I think for the rest of my life I will always mourn for that child that son of mine to keep their memories alive the Posies have created a memorial to kit on their Farm it's a stone from the farm a great big rock and we placed it by Duck Pond little duck pond which kit used to play with play in when he was a child he used to catch frogs and tadpoles there I took exception to people telling me to um backck up get on from a logical point of view probably very sound advice on what you should do but um yeah it's extremely hard to get on of it and it's even harder to get on of it when someone tells you to get on of it and I think if I got any advice or anybody is to refrain from that expression for a long time Rod Davis visited Jody's grave Every Day writing poems was his way of remembering his son this one is called headstone I talk to you now in stone itched carved Granite solid in words that remind of Dreams the symbol of a Life Death Rising towards all the elements this once pass by Cemetery hurs at you a well-worn path leads to your place and disguise both wild gray and Brilliant Blue and as I water your flowers with tears I remember you jod in ways that memories are only a part this is your mountain now let it hold caress and protect like childhood my son for the shores getting over the loss of Peter has been selling their business in wro and starting a new life on a deer farm near Fielding we've had drastic changes in our lives to try and cope with it we've actually sold our business and we moved but you don't get away from it some days I just cry all day and it it doesn't have to be anything specific spefic you just wake up in the morning and you know that it's going to be a terrible day I think those sort of days you literally do nothing except sit and feel sorry for yourself then other days you you cope and uh we're certainly coping a lot better than we were but the The Emptiness is still there 3 years down the track it's not a lot different than the day after it happened for us we feel like we've been given a life sentence um we just can't get away from it Carolyn chism's deep and abiding Christian faith has been essential for her peace of mind um this is a little pre that he that Paul wrote on the 28th of February just after that or couple of weeks I suppose after they' started the course get right with the Lord Earth is such a short time that we must step into the other world as much as we can and bring it back then on March the 21st if you're a climber and you're not dead you're either lucky or you're not climbing hard enough I lost my husband and my father my father-in-law and my son in those four years um and if it hadn't been that I'd had this rock which my life was built on um I just can't imagine where I would be um that's not to say it's made it any easier in a sense because the pain is no different but it wasn't like I was walking it alone Gary Reid has spent hours studying the submissions of evidence for the commission of inquiry but he doesn't believe he's been able to move on at all I don't think it'll get easier I think you'll just get used to living with it I believe that if this ends up in court where it should be that'll be a big milestone behind us and we can move on but until it happens or you're stuck sometimes I think that I'm getting on with life and things are getting into perspective and then something little happens and you realize that it's not that it's still there it's probably think about it every day I would have loved to have seen what happened with Catherine she either would have been a fantastic success or unemployable I don't know which way she would have turned out but uh she certainly had a zest for Life Steven Hannon says he has a new appreciation of life I value life a lot more now and things are more of a challenge just a little day every day things like going to the fridge and getting a drink or going to the little box and getting the mail at people tend to think that because what I've lost I'm going to be depressed and unhappy all the time but um that's not I mean everyone has a bad days I I get probably lower days than a lot of people but the good days far ex what most people would expect I enjoy myself a lot more temporar what I used to Sam Lucas considers himself lucky not only physically but mentally I am I guess in a way proud that I did survive that and the fact that I have got on with my life and that I am doing other things I went back finished that course off did another course and now I'm doing University I'm going to get a degree you know hope I'm get Teachers College you know and I'm going to do all that type of stuff and just I'm proud of the fact that I've got on with my life and it hasn't you know completely destroyed me and what about the people who worked for Doc by now almost all have moved on deeply affected by their involvement in the [Music] tragedy I would just like those people that are involved in building that platform to to acknowledge that that uh the pain is great and it's still great and it would be good to hear them say we are really [Music] sorry Kevin wild was one of those who considered the question deeply as to whether he would appear in this documentary in the end he sent us this fact this fax is to advise you that I continue to be severely emotionally affected by the Cave Creek tragedy and that because of additional and unbearable stress to my family and myself I have decided not to be interviewed I remain deeply deeply sorry for the victims and their families and no doubt will continue to do so for the rest of my [Music] life [Music] [Music] [Music] this program was made with the help of your broadcasting fee so you can see more of New Zealand on air e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e

Channel: Greenstone TV

Views: 1,079,975

Keywords: Cave Creek, national tragedy, west coast, new zealand west coast tragedy

Id: 5SVwv5Uhnkw

Length: 106min 50sec (6410 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 05 2016