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Biggest/Nastiest whipper with no sad ending 24-Sep-2010 At 10:59:12 AM bluey

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On 24/09/2010 tastrad wrote:
>I witnesed Neils take his 50m whipper at Africa on Ben Lomond. I was repeating
>a neighbouring route while Neils and Crazy John were attempting a new route
>ground up and onsight on a 200m face. I was above and to the right of Neils
>as he was on the second pitch on grade 22/23 territory about 25m above
>the belay. A hold broke and he ripped all the gear from the pitch (8 pieces)
>except the first wire above the belay. As he was cartwheeling head first
>past the belay I thought he was going to deck out from 65m and die. He
>pulled up 15m off the ground. Just after the first wire, the rope caught
>behind a flake and stripped a 2m section of the sheath with all the core
>exposed. My feeling is that the flake held him, not the wire, otherwise
>that might have ripped like all his other pieces, and he would have gone
>factor 2 onto John's marginal belay. If that had happened they'd both be
>dead.

I don't know this guy - so I ask this question just as a curious reader - is his gear placement really bad or does he just get on climbs with really marginal options??