Daily Mail

Reservists still at risk of death on extreme SAS tests

- By Katie Strick

MORE part time soldiers are at risk of dying during SAS selection training tests because they are not being adequately prepared by commanders, a military inquiry has found.

The highly critical report by the Defence Safety Authority followed the deaths of three SAS reservists who suffered heat exhaustion on a time trial mountain march in July 2013.

It found they were not sufficient­ly prepared for the test and were not ready to compete against full time comrades.

According to the inquiry, part time soldiers ‘remain vulnerable to a further incident’ until the Army clarifies the role of special forces reservists. It also said commanders incorrectl­y saw the tests as routine.

The report by the Ministry of Defence’s safety watchdog said the country’s special forces had ‘a high threshold for risk, an unquestion­ing culture and no independen­t challenge.’

Cpl James Dunsby, Trooper

Edward Maher and L/Cpl Craig Roberts all collapsed and died during the test mountain march because they ‘were not trained and conditione­d to the right level’, according to the watchdog’s director general, Air Marshal Dick Garwood.

A 2015 inquest found a ‘catalogue of very serious mistakes’, and said the response to the reservists’ collapse was ‘chaotic’. But two years after the inquest, the safety watchdog said the MoD had been slow to learn its lessons.

It also said there had been further ‘near miss’ cases due to heat exhaustion since the deaths in 2013.

Clare Stevens, lawyer for Cpl James Dunsby’s father, said the findings point to ‘serious failings’. An MoD spokesman said: ‘We are committed to doing all we can to ensure such a tragic event cannot happen again.’

‘Serious failings’

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