Risk mitigation
Risk mitigation refers to actions taken to reduce the likelihood of severity of harm associated with an activity. Risk mitigation does not eliminate danger, and should not be interpreted as making an activity safe. All activities involving restraint, altered breathing, impact, intoxication, or physiological stress carry inherent risk. The purpose of mitigation is to reduce preventable harm and improve understanding of how and why injuries occur.
General Mitigation Principles
No universal protocol eliminates danger. However, common mitigation strategies include:
- Education regarding relevant anatomy and physiology
- Clear pre-activity discussion/negotiation of limits and expectations
- Establishment of safe words or signals
- Avoiding reliance on a single safeguard
- Building redundancy into safety measures
- Avoiding solo-participation in activities where incapacitation is possible
- Planning for emergency response
Redundancy increases reliability. Dependence on a single safeguard increases risk.
Limitations of Mitigation
- Prior success does not predict future outcome.
- The absence of harm is not the evidence of safety.
- Many serious injuries and fatalities occur during activities that participants had performed previously without incident. Survivorship bias is common in anecdotal advice.
Informed Consent
Meaningful consent requires awareness of material risk.
Participants should understand:
- What can reasonably go wrong
- How quickly it can occur
- What the likely outcome of failure would be
In activities where unconsciousness is possible, loss of consciousness removes the ability to withdraw consent or self-rescue.