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The singularly most dangerous thing ... 14-May-2013 At 12:38:46 PM Snacks

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On 14/05/2013 technogeekery wrote:
>Would be interesting to have more data on that in Australia. Rapping certainly
>isn't the most dangerous thing in North American climbing, where they HAVE
>been keeping quite detailed stats for 50+ years. Of all the recorded accidents
>there (6868 in USA to 2007), most are in ascent (2853) rather than descent
>(2192) giving lie to the myth that most accidents happen after the climb
>itself. The biggest "Immediate Cause" is "Fall of Slip on Rock" (3407 in
>that period, or almost exactly 50%) followed by Slip on Snow or Ice (971)
>and Falling Rock Ice or Object (610). Then comes Exceeding Abilities, Illness,
>Stranded, Avalanche, Exposure, and only then Rappel Failure (274, or 4%).
>
>
>So rapping is a very small contributor to the number of serious accidents
>in North America - interesting in light of the anecdotal evidence in this
>thread. While our stats would be quite different (much fewer ice/snow,
>Avalanche, Exposure incidents for a start) you'd think we'd be broadly
>similar in things like Fall of Slip on Rock being by far the largest.
>
>Maybe it is a perception thing? When you have an issue rapping, the enormity
>of the risk / danger slaps you in the face and leaves you sweating and
>fearful, sometimes reliving it for years. But how often when leading are
>we a tiny incident (a slip, a breaking hold, a falling rock) away from
>serious injury or death? You know the little justifications we use well
>(its easy ground, I wont fall. When in doubt, run it out. That flake has
>probably been like that for 500 years) and we get used to pushing that
>niggling fear and doubt down, and discounting the danger - maybe too much?
>
>
>Or - does it make more sense to look at the time we spend doing these
>activities as well? For many of us the ratio of number of climbs to lowers/raps
>is almost 1:1, but we'll spend one or two hours climbing for every 5 mins
>rapping - so the rap accidents suddenly look proportionately more significant.
>
>
>Interesting.
>
>Oh yes, my most dangerous thing I've done? Rapping off the end of my rope,
>25 years ago. Short climb, pulled up some rope & dropped it down, visually
>checked it reached the deck, then did some fiddling with the anchors, and
>rapped. Wasn't looking what I was doing, and rapped off the end of one
>rope at about 3m off the deck, landed on my arse with a thud, & no harm
>done. One of my friends on the ground had started to pull the rope when
>I was setting anchors, for some reason, and then stopped, leaving one end
>3m up, but it could just as easily have been 20m. I'm still quite paranoid
>about rapping (and partners...actually, lots of things)

Do you have the link for those stats?

It's good that the causes of an accident have been categorised, but are the accidents graded by severity? Or is any accident (whether it be a twisted ankle or fatality) just treated as a +1?