TMC Safety Simulation

Temporary Missing Child (TMC) Safety Simulation

This page illustrates why temporary child-separation incidents should be treated as a safety-response problem, not automatically as proof of instructor negligence. Even if the average instructor experiences a TMC only rarely, random variation alone can cause a few instructors to have multiple incidents in a single season.

Core safety message: the safest system is one that encourages instructors to report a TMC immediately, so supervisors and patrol can respond fast. A punitive culture can discourage fast reporting.

Inputs

Number of instructors

Total instructors included in the simulation.

Average working days per week

Example: a typical part-time instructor might work 4 days/week.

Weeks worked per season

Example: 14 weeks in a main teaching season.

Average years between TMC incidents per instructor

If set to 5, that means the average instructor has 1 TMC every 5 seasons.

Number of seasons to aggregate

Used for the summary probabilities below. The chart still shows one representative season.

Work days / instructor / season

Daily TMC probability

0.357%

Expected TMCs / instructor / season

0.20

Expected resort-wide TMCs / season

24.0

Representative season: TMC counts by instructor

Bars are sorted from lowest to highest count. Most instructors will usually have zero incidents, some will have one, and a small number may have several just due to chance.

0 incidents 1 incident 2 incidents 3 incidents 4+ incidents

What the simulation shows

Aggregated over many seasons

Interpretation

A TMC should trigger an immediate coordinated response, not hesitation.
If staff fear punishment merely for reporting, they may delay escalation while trying to solve it alone.
Counts alone are not enough. Exposure differs by age group, lesson type, terrain, staffing, and operational chaos.
The right management question is not "Who do we punish?" but "How do we improve prevention, fast reporting, and recovery?"