Climber falls during Service Day activities

Strikes me as proof positive that even the very best among us are prone to making mistakes. It is an integral component of the human condition in my opinion.

An old schooler like me likes to think that all these new SRT climbing techniques with all their complexities played a role in this pro's fall, but that's in all likelihood probably not the case. SRT obviously has its advantages over DRT, neither of them allow for mistakes period.

However I can't help but think of my local climbing hero's take on the locking rope clips when they first came out many years ago. Magargal said to me " Slap an old rope clip on the concrete two dozen times, and it's still safe to clip on to. It's practically indestructible. But slap a new locking rope clip on the concrete two dozen times real hard and watch the springs fly off it in all directions rendering it useless".

The point he was trying to drive home to me was that not every climber in this biz takes the time and effort to ensure his fancy new equipment is in its pristine and proper working order. That these equipment manufacturers sometimes ignore this very real facet of human nature, and that this results in accidents because these manufacturers no longer try to make their products bullet proof, indestructible even in a clown's hands that's not up to date on the fine print of the product's instruction manual.

I suspect human error in this man's fall, and it's not unusual for that to happen even to the best of us. It's very hard to perform flawlessly 100 percent of the time regardless of how good you are, or think you are.

We can only try our best, think methodically, and with as much discipline as we can muster daily.

My very best wishes for this pro's speedy recovery, and return to work.

Jomoco
 
this is a conjecture...two things to ponder.

Snakebite is a smaller diameter rope. It is also just a little less flexible than wire rope/cable. Before Kong got around to updating their handled ascenders it was possible to shoehorn a bite of rope over the locked cam. The gap between the cam cheek and the flat stock was bigger on one side or the other. It didn't take much of a yank to bend the shell and get the rope out. This is what is likely to have happened in a couple of falls using the two headed Kongs for footlocking a doubled rope. One guy, who ended up scewered on the point of an iron fence apparently went off-lead at the top and was close a large diameter limb that he had his rope draped over. Add up these individual things and it lead to an accident.

Could he have been standing on the broken limb and had it break under him while he was transferring from SRT to DdRT? Or...been lanyarded to the broken limb when it broke out?

During the transition years from non-locking rope snaps and three strand natural rope to synthetic ropes and the integration of rock/rescue/rope access gear arbos struggled with how to integrate the new tools. From my experience arbos have been great at integrating the tools but forgot to take the time to integrate the techniques of using these new tools. along the way there have been accidents. Whose responsibility is that? hardly fair to blame the manufacturers for 100% of the results. From what I've seen gear companies have been just ahead of wide demand for new product. Regulations and standards are a ways behind the cutting edge. I remember being showed how easy it was to shoehorn a rope snap open on a harness d-ring. The next day I got safety/locking rope snaps for climbing. My first climbing carabiners were steel, screw gate Subai's. One day I looked down and saw that the screw sleeve had unscrewed. Scared the snot out of me! That night I drove down to Midwest Mountaineering and bought some Black Diamond lockers. These were some of the first 'auto' locking biners. They had a keylock for the last motion but they didn't open up. They held up really well even being used on a four dee [steel], butt strap harness. Next harness, Blair Ultralight...still used steel d-rings with little wear.

During the next Z133 review SRT is guaranteed to be under the light. In addition, having gear and rope compatibility that is in alignment with CE type regulations is on the horizon. When I look around the table of voting members on the Z and then beyond them to the interested parties I think that I may be the closest to an SRT climber as there is in the room. One or two others climb routinely but I don't know if they are SRT climbers. Even though I've been working with SRT for over 20 years I am not an every day production climber. To me, the Rope Wrench is a great tool, but I haven't had the flight time to understand its nuances as well as I should. That leaves 30+ people with even less experience.

Sometimes I hear criticisms of new climbing tools and techniques and think that I'm hearing the same sort of naysaying and hysteria that accompanied automobiles a hundred plus years ago. It was thought that the human body would be damaged at speeds faster than 20mph.

Check...then double check. Think like an astronaut after all we are arbonauts.
 
I hope Steve is able to recall the reasons for the fall someday, not that's it matters to him but it would bring me peace of mind knowing that it was human error and not equipment failure that caused the fall.
 
I just got back from the MAC-ISA climbing competition and Steve surprised everyone by showing up. He got out of the hospital yesterday. He has a knee brace and a back brace but looked pretty good considering all he has been through.

I looked at the tree and distance he fell from and it is truly incredible he is with us.
 
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