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csproul
Feb 14, 2011, 4:56 PM
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This weekend, myself and several others witnessed a pretty long fall that resulted in a climber hitting the ground. I was climbing Foreign Trade Zone while a party of two was toproping some variation of Bat Out of Hell (really I think they were just off route).
One of these two young men had reached the top of their climb while I was about half way up mine. I heard a whoosh and a loud thump and looked down to see the climber yell and bounce off the ground.
I had my belayer lower me and we sent a couple people up the trail to call 911 and notify the Park Ranger. Meanwhile, the climber's partner, myself and a couple others (tried to) kept him still and tied a shirt to a small cut on the back of his head. He was alert, not obviously injured and otherwise seemed ok (no loss of feeling, no clearly broken bones, no excessive bleeding, pupils looked normal...). Rangers and EMS arrived fairly quickly and checked him out. He was up and walking around pretty fast, refused treatment and seemed completely ok, and the two actually kept climbing.
His apparent lack of injury was pretty amazing to me. He had fallen from the top of the route, which I'd estimate at ~40 ft. and landed on his back/ass. His belayer had taken him off belay, assuming he was going to rap, when he was, in fact, expecting to be lowered.
Their anchor was obviously constructed in a manner that created a lot of rope drag with the rope going over a large ledge at the top. Ultimately, I think this actually saved his ass. Because of the friction, when he began falling, he fell pretty slowly until he was 20-25 feet off the ground. He really only got up speed for the last 20 feet or so. The poorly constructed anchor actually slowed down at least half of his fall.
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david7896
Feb 14, 2011, 6:09 PM
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wow that guys is very lucky. just another story of communication failure. i hope they learn from it.
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milesenoell
Feb 14, 2011, 7:10 PM
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I hope that if I ever blow it big I'm even half as lucky as this guy. Here's to being young and lucky!
That said, calling this accident preventable is an understatement. Hand lowering himself until he felt tension from the belay would have kept that guy from decking, plain and simple.
Edit: for clarity
(This post was edited by milesenoell on Feb 14, 2011, 7:11 PM)
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wwalt822
Feb 14, 2011, 8:40 PM
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milesenoell wrote: That said, calling this accident preventable is an understatement. Hand lowering himself until he felt tension from the belay would have kept that guy from decking, plain and simple. Edit: for clarity
Or like you know if the belayer didn't take him off belay until he calls off belay.
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csproul
Feb 14, 2011, 8:49 PM
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milesenoell wrote: I hope that if I ever blow it big I'm even half as lucky as this guy. Here's to being young and lucky! That said, calling this accident preventable is an understatement. Hand lowering himself until he felt tension from the belay would have kept that guy from decking, plain and simple. Edit: for clarity
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bearbreeder
Feb 14, 2011, 8:50 PM
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i wouldnt climb again with that belayer after that ... amazing they did more climbs ... 
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milesenoell
Feb 14, 2011, 9:34 PM
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Perhaps my assertion was misplaced. I had just intended to stress that the person getting dropped has a role in this that is often overlooked. It's easy to blame this on the failure of the belayer, but I see it as a mutual failure.
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byran
Feb 15, 2011, 2:57 AM
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I've had a sort of related experience once before. I was climbing with someone who wasn't from the States so the typical climbing lingo got a bit mixed up. I clipped into the anchors and yelled "take" in order to be lowered. He heard it as "safe" and took me off belay. Luckily I had several things working in my favor, like - I clearly heard him yell up "off belay", I was standing on a nice big ledge and could easily clip into the anchors, and it was obvious that there was no tension on the rope. So accident avoided, no harm done.
But in that situation there were a number of factors which led to the confusion. I was 80 ft up, out of sight from my belayer, there was a rushing river nearby, and we were two climbers from different countries who had never climbed together before. I'm really struggling to imagine how this sort of thing happens on a 40ft climb without there being some serious carelessness in part by the climber AND belayer.
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reaeper
Feb 15, 2011, 3:00 AM
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Damn, miscommunication always seems to be the problem in these cases... Anyway, at least he is okay, yet another reason to make sure both the climber and belayer are on the same terms.
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socalclimber
Feb 15, 2011, 3:30 AM
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Uh.... Wow! I really have to question the intelligence of the two to continue climbing after that. Probably would have been a good idea to go home for the day. Severe injuries don't always manifest themselves right away.
Case in point:
About 4 years ago one of my best friends, and looooong time climbing partner was up in Mammoth snow boarding on a Thursday. He took a small jump, and landed hard and banged his head. He said he was a little out of it at first, but brushed it off and kept on for the day. Friday he drove down to my place and arrived in the early evening. As we normally do, we had big fire that night and went to bed. Saturday 6:30 am, I'm up making coffee in the house, all of a sudden I hear another friend start yelling "ROBERT ROBERT COME QUICK! STEVE'S HAVING A SEIZURE!".
Out the door I fly. Sure enough, he's on the ground. Full Gran Mall. I roll him on his side and after a minute or so he's starting to come out of it. Next thing I know he's up and standing, hands out in front of him yelling "OW OW OW IT HURTS! WHAT'S HAPPENING? MAKE IT STOP!". For the next 20 minutes while we waited for EMS to arrive he was combative and stumbling around without a clue as to where he was and what had happened. The best we could do was to keep him from hurting himself. Finally he came back to some semblance of reality and EMS arrived and took care of the rest.
I knew this was no "normal" seizure. Turns out he had a slow bleed in his brain from the snow boarding incident.
I still see him quite often, and talk almost everyday, but he isn't the same. Memory loss is a big one. All in all he's still Steve, but there are definite differences.
Think Mechanism Of Injury (MOI). Don't just slough off things like this just because you can get up on your own.
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Vegasclimber10
Feb 15, 2011, 3:47 AM
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Good point, thanks for bringing that up.
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healyje
Feb 15, 2011, 11:33 AM
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Blowing it off is why Natasha Richardson died after a skiing fall.
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socalclimber
Feb 15, 2011, 11:47 AM
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healyje wrote: Blowing it off is why Natasha Richardson died after a skiing fall.
Now that you mention it, that's true. I had forgotten about that one.
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wwalt822
Feb 15, 2011, 3:58 PM
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milesenoell wrote: Perhaps my assertion was misplaced. I had just intended to stress that the person getting dropped has a role in this that is often overlooked. It's easy to blame this on the failure of the belayer, but I see it as a mutual failure.
it is 100% the belayers fault if the following conditions are true.
Climber and belayer knew eachother's communcation system (no language barrier etc)
Climber didn't call off belay
Belayer didn't announce belay off.
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jt512
Feb 15, 2011, 4:07 PM
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wwalt822 wrote: milesenoell wrote: Perhaps my assertion was misplaced. I had just intended to stress that the person getting dropped has a role in this that is often overlooked. It's easy to blame this on the failure of the belayer, but I see it as a mutual failure. it is 100% the belayers fault if the following conditions are true. Climber and belayer knew eachother's communcation system (no language barrier etc) Climber didn't call off belay Belayer didn't announce belay off.
The climber should still ensure he is on belay before weighting the rope, so I don't see how this could be 100% the belayer's fault. In fact, I consider it to be nearly 100% the climber's fault. I don't know why the belayer took him off, but the climber should have been aware of it.
Jay
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csproul
Feb 15, 2011, 4:11 PM
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wwalt822 wrote: milesenoell wrote: Perhaps my assertion was misplaced. I had just intended to stress that the person getting dropped has a role in this that is often overlooked. It's easy to blame this on the failure of the belayer, but I see it as a mutual failure. it is 100% the belayers fault if the following conditions are true. Climber and belayer knew eachother's communcation system (no language barrier etc) Climber didn't call off belay Belayer didn't announce belay off.
*the only exception I can think of is when climbing multipitch and the leader is out of rope and out of communication. In that case I will take them off belay and start climbing.
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wwalt822
Feb 15, 2011, 4:33 PM
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jt512 wrote: wwalt822 wrote: milesenoell wrote: Perhaps my assertion was misplaced. I had just intended to stress that the person getting dropped has a role in this that is often overlooked. It's easy to blame this on the failure of the belayer, but I see it as a mutual failure. it is 100% the belayers fault if the following conditions are true. Climber and belayer knew eachother's communcation system (no language barrier etc) Climber didn't call off belay Belayer didn't announce belay off. The climber should still ensure he is on belay before weighting the rope, so I don't see how this could be 100% the belayer's fault. In fact, I consider it to be nearly 100% the climber's fault. I don't know why the belayer took him off, but the climber should have been aware of it. Jay
So if I take you off belay when you don't call for it and don't make sure you hear me, then you fall and die, its nearly 100% your fault?
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jt512
Feb 15, 2011, 4:34 PM
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wwalt822 wrote: jt512 wrote: wwalt822 wrote: milesenoell wrote: Perhaps my assertion was misplaced. I had just intended to stress that the person getting dropped has a role in this that is often overlooked. It's easy to blame this on the failure of the belayer, but I see it as a mutual failure. it is 100% the belayers fault if the following conditions are true. Climber and belayer knew eachother's communcation system (no language barrier etc) Climber didn't call off belay Belayer didn't announce belay off. The climber should still ensure he is on belay before weighting the rope, so I don't see how this could be 100% the belayer's fault. In fact, I consider it to be nearly 100% the climber's fault. I don't know why the belayer took him off, but the climber should have been aware of it. Jay So if I take you off belay when you don't call for it and don't make sure you hear me, then you fall and die, its nearly 100% your fault?
Yes.
Jay
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csproul
Feb 15, 2011, 5:19 PM
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jt512 wrote: wwalt822 wrote: milesenoell wrote: Perhaps my assertion was misplaced. I had just intended to stress that the person getting dropped has a role in this that is often overlooked. It's easy to blame this on the failure of the belayer, but I see it as a mutual failure. it is 100% the belayers fault if the following conditions are true. Climber and belayer knew eachother's communcation system (no language barrier etc) Climber didn't call off belay Belayer didn't announce belay off. The climber should still ensure he is on belay before weighting the rope, so I don't see how this could be 100% the belayer's fault. In fact, I consider it to be nearly 100% the climber's fault. I don't know why the belayer took him off, but the climber should have been aware of it. Jay
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csproul
Feb 15, 2011, 5:22 PM
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jt512 wrote: wwalt822 wrote: jt512 wrote: wwalt822 wrote: milesenoell wrote: Perhaps my assertion was misplaced. I had just intended to stress that the person getting dropped has a role in this that is often overlooked. It's easy to blame this on the failure of the belayer, but I see it as a mutual failure. it is 100% the belayers fault if the following conditions are true. Climber and belayer knew eachother's communcation system (no language barrier etc) Climber didn't call off belay Belayer didn't announce belay off. The climber should still ensure he is on belay before weighting the rope, so I don't see how this could be 100% the belayer's fault. In fact, I consider it to be nearly 100% the climber's fault. I don't know why the belayer took him off, but the climber should have been aware of it. Jay So if I take you off belay when you don't call for it and don't make sure you hear me, then you fall and die, its nearly 100% your fault? Yes. Jay
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jt512
Feb 15, 2011, 5:45 PM
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csproul wrote: jt512 wrote: wwalt822 wrote: jt512 wrote: wwalt822 wrote: milesenoell wrote: Perhaps my assertion was misplaced. I had just intended to stress that the person getting dropped has a role in this that is often overlooked. It's easy to blame this on the failure of the belayer, but I see it as a mutual failure. it is 100% the belayers fault if the following conditions are true. Climber and belayer knew eachother's communcation system (no language barrier etc) Climber didn't call off belay Belayer didn't announce belay off. The climber should still ensure he is on belay before weighting the rope, so I don't see how this could be 100% the belayer's fault. In fact, I consider it to be nearly 100% the climber's fault. I don't know why the belayer took him off, but the climber should have been aware of it. Jay So if I take you off belay when you don't call for it and don't make sure you hear me, then you fall and die, its nearly 100% your fault? Yes. Jay That's bullshit. As far as the belayer is/was concerned, the climber could have just as well fallen while climbing as fallen while lowering.
Context, please. We are not talking about a belayer taking his partner off belay in the middle of a climb.
Jay
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jt512
Feb 15, 2011, 5:56 PM
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csproul wrote: jt512 wrote: wwalt822 wrote: milesenoell wrote: Perhaps my assertion was misplaced. I had just intended to stress that the person getting dropped has a role in this that is often overlooked. It's easy to blame this on the failure of the belayer, but I see it as a mutual failure. it is 100% the belayers fault if the following conditions are true. Climber and belayer knew eachother's communcation system (no language barrier etc) Climber didn't call off belay Belayer didn't announce belay off. The climber should still ensure he is on belay before weighting the rope, so I don't see how this could be 100% the belayer's fault. In fact, I consider it to be nearly 100% the climber's fault. I don't know why the belayer took him off, but the climber should have been aware of it. Jay I agree that it is on the climber to ensure that he/she is safe, but I still think this was mostly the belayers fault. There is no reason he should have taken the climber off belay. If the climber is telling the truth, he stated that he did hold the belayers side of the rope and felt there was tension on the rope before leaning back to be lowered. Because he was around a corner and over a ledge, and they had a lot of rope drag, the climber felt the tension and mistook it for a belay.
Because he was around a corner and over a ledge, and had a lot of rope drag, the climber should have been even more cautious than usual in ensuring that he was on belay before committing to the rope. Can you imagine yourself in that situation thinking "I can't see or hear my belayer, he can't see or hear me, and there's a lot of rope drag, so it's hard to tell whether I'm on belay or not, so I guess I'll just lean back and hope for the best"?
In reply to: Especially since there was poor communication, the climber should have remained on belay. I certainly have an expectation that my belayer will keep me on belay until I ask to be taken off belay.
I have that expectation as well, but I never just assume it's true, and under difficult circumstances, as we have in this case, I'd be even more cautious than usual.
Jay
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byran
Feb 15, 2011, 6:10 PM
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Even if the belayer was 100% responsible for dropping the climber (which I doubt is the case here), the climber is still 100% responsible for choosing to be belayed by someone who is an inexperienced noob/irresponsible idiot.
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csproul
Feb 15, 2011, 6:37 PM
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I can see where you and Jay are coming from and I agree that we all bear our own responsibility for choosing qualified and trusted belayers. So in that respect, the climber bears some/much responsibility. But in my mind it is still a greater violation of basic principles to take someone off of belay that does not request it. This should just be a basic practice.
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csproul
Feb 15, 2011, 6:44 PM
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jt512 wrote: csproul wrote: jt512 wrote: wwalt822 wrote: jt512 wrote: wwalt822 wrote: milesenoell wrote: Perhaps my assertion was misplaced. I had just intended to stress that the person getting dropped has a role in this that is often overlooked. It's easy to blame this on the failure of the belayer, but I see it as a mutual failure. it is 100% the belayers fault if the following conditions are true. Climber and belayer knew eachother's communcation system (no language barrier etc) Climber didn't call off belay Belayer didn't announce belay off. The climber should still ensure he is on belay before weighting the rope, so I don't see how this could be 100% the belayer's fault. In fact, I consider it to be nearly 100% the climber's fault. I don't know why the belayer took him off, but the climber should have been aware of it. Jay So if I take you off belay when you don't call for it and don't make sure you hear me, then you fall and die, its nearly 100% your fault? Yes. Jay That's bullshit. As far as the belayer is/was concerned, the climber could have just as well fallen while climbing as fallen while lowering. Context, please. We are not talking about a belayer taking his partner off belay in the middle of a climb. Jay
On your other points, I can agree, but I'd still be pretty mad at my belayer. After that initial reaction, hopefully I'd eventually come to understand my own responsibility for the accident.
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