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Spotlight – health and safety gone wild

Channel 4’s hit documentary Alone in the Wild, screened last November, attracted millions of viewers who tuned in to see Ed Wardle’s attempt to survive for three months alone in the vast wilderness of the Yukon. Connect talks to Lisa Masterman, Head of Health and Safety Services at the programme’s production company, International Media Group (IMG), about how Twitter became an integral part of the programme’s risk assessment.

In today’s modern world of non-stop, nine-to-five living, many of us can’t help but daydream about what life would be like if we gave up the rat race and lived a more natural and peaceful existence away from the hustle and bustle of the 21st century.

For those who never caught a glimpse of Alone in the Wild last year, programme makers experimented with the notion of escapism by placing Ed Wardle, a cameraman and adventurer, in a remote region of the Yukon with just basic provisions and a camera, to see whether he could survive. And unlike other reality TV shows, Ed didn’t have a cosy hotel room to sleep in after the cameras were switched off.

“It was definitely reality TV in its truest sense,” explained Lisa. “Although Ed was chosen mainly because of his past experience [as a documentary film-maker and outdoorsman] and his knowledge of survival techniques, the central premise – not only from the production point of view, but from the health and safety angle – was, clearly, how can someone cope in that kind of environment?”

The Yukon is Canada’s most westerly territory and it borders Alaska, meaning that the climate is mainly arctic, although the short summers do provide some sunshine for things to grow. As well as the challenging and often hostile environment that Ed had to contend with, it was the inhabitants – namely the local wildlife – that proved a real headache for those back in London who were tasked with drawing up the programme’s risk assessment.

Lisa, who used to work for the BBC on shows such as Tomorrow’s World and the original Come Dancing, said: “Obviously, it was vitally important that we were involved with Alone in the Wild right from the early planning stage so we had a direct hand in the development of the programme.

“On this particular production I was supported by my colleague David King Taylor, who worked closely with the production team to establish appropriate controls.

“Creatives will always come up with challenging, and sometimes off-the-wall, ideas and it’s up to us as health and safety professionals to help them make it happen. And generally we’re in the business of working together with creatives to help them get a project off the ground – we're not, as some people see us, a profession that often says ‘no, that can’t be done’.

“Ed was chosen for the programme because of his previous knowledge of survival techniques, and we coupled that with extra training on things like botany, emergency first aid and firearms.”

One of the ways programme makers monitored his physical condition was with a call-back system which Ed used to communicate with the producers. A ‘traffic light’ system was introduced, whereby a ‘red’, ‘yellow’ or ‘green’ signal would be given. If Ed was in an emergency situation and needed assistance, a ‘red’ warning would be given and someone was able to get to him within 20 minutes.

As well as the threat from grizzly bears and poisonous snakes, Ed had to contend with perhaps the most potent threat, namely solitude.

“Being alone in such an environment was obviously at the forefront of our minds when we came to drawing up the risk assessment – and we naturally incorporated processes and procedures to constantly monitor Ed’s state of mind during his time out in the wilderness.”

One of those processes turned out to be the social networking site Twitter. For those who don’t know, Twitter is a micro-blogging website which lets users communicate their thoughts to others using only 140 characters.

“Ed was contractually obliged to tweet throughout his time in the Yukon, so we decided early on to incorporate his tweets into our risk assessment.

“We had psychological experts on hand to monitor his state of mind through his entries to build up a picture of his mental state.”

Also incorporated into the central premise of the show was that if Ed had to be pulled out of the Yukon for either physical or psychological reasons, then that would become part of the story.

“It was a fabulous programme to be involved in and I thoroughly enjoyed my time working on the health and safety side before, during and after the show,” said Lisa.