Eight years later, the pain remains

The Mangatepopo disaster last week has reawakened the horror from a tragedy suffered by another Howick school eight years ago. Its principal reaches out to his neighbours. Debrin Foxcroft reports
The memory is still powerful. For Howick Intermediate School principal John McAleese, there is no way he can ever forget. Eight years ago, 59 students from his school, half a dozen parents and teachers arrived at Kaueranga Valley Christian School. The students were excited. They were city kids in the heart of the Coromandel Ranges. Just before dinner, 18 children walked the trail to a nearby swimming hole. By the end of the evening, two had died. No one really knows what happened to the boys or what caused the tragedy. But in the days and weeks and, eventually, years that followed, the Howick community had to get a hold on their grief and their anger. They had to come to terms with two young lives lost on a school outing. For Mr McAleese the pain of the tragedy is still present. "Sympathy doesn't heal it," he says. "For me personally, I don't know that I will ever really get over it. You cope with it but you never put it to rest." The deaths of six Elim Christian College students and their teacher has shown that the emotions from the earlier deaths of Joshua McNaught and Revan Naidoo still bubble just beneath the surface of rebuilt lives. "They say time is a great healer but there are a number of people who haven't got over the events of eight years ago," says Mr McAleese. "These deaths have opened a lot of wounds for them." Now Mr McAleese can look back at what happened on February 14, 2000, and in the months that followed, and see how his school held on - just. "Often, as principal, you are not present. You are informed. What you need to do is think of the groups that need to be cared for, groups of people all with different needs. Inevitably, you can't be all things to all people." As the shock and horror of the accident subsided, it was important to keep the school going. Mr McAleese still believes that is key to dealing with mourning. "Student and teachers need to get on with what they are doing. That's pretty important. Students are affected in a lot of different ways and you just can't predict it." As the sharp pain eased to a dull ache, the questions began. "In our case, we were involved in a lot of grief, a lot of anger. We didn't have the answers to the questions people were asking," Mr McAleese explains. "In the end, we felt that the best forum was the police and this probably frustrated a lot of people." As Mr McAleese read a statement at the Thames Coroners Court inquest seven months after the tragedy, Revan's mother, Nadira Naidoo, could be heard sobbing loudly outside the room. Joshua's mother, Kirsten, held up a framed photograph for the principal to see. Key to the mothers' anger was the ratio between teachers and students on that first day of camp and the school's failure to check all the students were accounted for after Revan's body was found. After the Howick Intermediate incident, schools were issued new guidelines for Education Outside the Classroom. For Mr McAleese and for Howick Intermediate, these guidelines were too late, and probably wouldn't have made a difference for Revan and Joshua. "There's a knee jerk reaction that says children shouldn't be doing this stuff. But kids need to have these experiences. There just need to be the right safety measures in place. "You never forget what happens. You never forget the people you have lost." Now he reaches out to another school going through a similar trauma. "We have offered support and we will just be here keeping an eye on each other."