Sports facilities track, don’t share injury data
Ski resorts, bike parks collect data for safety reasons but won’t release it to public
Extreme sports facilities throughout the GTA and surrounding area have differing approaches to on-site injury tracking, but a Star survey of a dozen businesses in the region found a common thread: they won’t share that data with the public.
The Star asked various facilities, including ski and snowboard resorts, mountain bike parks, indoor bike parks and rock climbing centres, about whether each facility tracks on-site customer injuries, how they use the data, and if they would be willing to release injury data to the Star.
Many said they do track injuries internally and use the data for safety purposes such as re-evaluating programs, analyzing risk management and improving facilities. But several businesses declined to comment — and none of the responding facilities agreed to release their full injury data.
“That does not surprise me,” said Patrick Brown, a Toronto-based critical injury lawyer who has raised red flags about the lack of regulation of Ontario’s extreme sports facilities, which are not required to report customer injury data to the government or public. “Even when you commence lawsuits against these facilities, they still try to prevent you from accessing that information,” Brown said. “It’s a bit of a cat-and-mouse game. Generally, without court orders, you don’t get access to it.”
Various facilities did stress their commitment to safety for their customers. At Toronto’s True North Climbing, owner John Gross said the facility tracks on-site injuries “very carefully,” including completing an incident report for any injury serious enough to end a climber’s session and following up with every injured customer to understand the severity of their injury.
“We keep an eye on this information to see if there are any trends, or any indication that there is an increase in injuries that might need a response,” Gross said.
“For example, if we saw a rash of injuries in one location of our facility, we would look to see if there was something wrong in that area.” (This hasn’t happened in the more than five years the facility has been operating, he added.)
Gross said he thinks it’s not appropriate to share the rock climbing facility’s detailed injury data and called it “private business information.” He did note that the facility’s rate of serious injury — defined as a broken bone or worse — is 1.01 per 20,000 hours of participation.
“We do not submit our injury data to any governing body because we are not aware of any that apply to our industry,” Gross said. “We do share all incident reports with our insurance company, so they are up to date on this.”
Karen McGilvray, owner of the Rock Oasis, which operates indoor climbing gyms serving Toronto and Ajax, said the company does track injuries and “near misses,” and uses the data to improve the facilities and systems.
“We do not submit the data to anyone; no one requires it,” she said. “I am unable to share injury data as my insurance company considers it confidential.”
As for ski resorts, Mark Rutheford, general manager at Brimacombe ski resort in Orono, Ont., said the resort tracks injuries internally and submits them to a national database run by insurance companies. Brown expressed concern over the role played by insurance companies at various facilities.
“Risk management shouldn’t always be driven by an insurance company,” he said. “An insurance company’s goal is to prevent lawsuits . . . The first thing they always do is waivers, warnings, to protect the facility from being sued instead of making the facility safe.”
Rutheford had a different take. “As far as our industry goes, we’re very risk-management minded,” he said. “As a facility, we’re not in the business to hurt people; we’re in the business to give people a recreational opportunity to have fun, so we want to mitigate any risks our patrons might face.”
Brimacombe’s accident rates are “quite low,” he added, with fewer than 300 reported or documented incidents in a season and about 150,000 to 155,000 skier visits a year.
At Glen Eden — the third-largest resort in Ontario, with more than 328,000 visitors in the 2014-15 season — all injury incidents are tracked.
“As we capture personal details, we are not able to share this data without the consent of the individuals,” said Niall Lobley, manager of risk and land holdings services for Conservation Halton.
The incident rate at Glen Eden is dropping despite a growing number of visitors, he added. “The past season saw our rates drop to just below 1.6 per 1000 visits,” Lobley said, and explained an “incident” is anything that requires a patroller’s attention, ranging from a simple fall to more significant injuries.
Snow Valley ski resort in Barrie also keeps records of on-site injuries, according to general manager John Ball, but “does not publish, share, or post” the records.
As the Star reported recently, Blue Mountain Ski Resort, which also features mountain bike trails, also tracks every detail of on-site injuries and uses the data on an “ongoing basis” to increase safety and re-evaluate programs, but does not make the information public or report it to any governing body.
At Hardwood Ski and Bike in Oro-Medonte Township, president and general manager Jack Sasseville said, “We do track injuries internally, we do not report them to any other body and we are not interested in sharing them with the Toronto Star.”
Several other local facilities — including Climber’s Rock, an indoor rock climbing facility in Burlington; Joy Ride 150, an indoor bike park in Markham; and Toronto Climbing Academy, an indoor rock climbing facility — declined to comment on the Star’s questions about on-site injury tracking.
“I think the reasons are obvious: they don’t want people to know,” Brown said. Representatives for Horseshoe Resort, an all-season mountain resort in Barrie, and Joe Rockhead’s, an indoor rock climbing facility in Toronto, could not be reached for comment.