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BD QC Lab: Dangers of Rope Worm Carabiners 5-Oct-2010 At 2:32:08 PM SteveC

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Don't know much about ice worms. One of my climbing partners said he had to use a grigri all the time so he could attend to his belay worms.
I've seen those worn out biners first hand. Seems a common practice in Euroterre to leave fixed mank in the steep sport caves in the form of old italian or eastern bloc biners, to save back cleaning. In Usaville the fixed mank usually takes the form of Petzl spirit draws quicklinked or even chained to the bolts. which might look nicer but the rope end biners do wear out. I should have kept it to scare people with; but I did find one of these razor edge biners on a fixed sport route some where in utah. First or second bolt, it must have been worn out from rope drag when lowering as there is no way any rope would have survived a fall over this thing. A couple of the others were worn out as well but not to the point of razor sharp. I replaced all the bad ones with my own manky italian biners so I could justify buying a new set of draws at american prices. They're probably worn out and waiting to deglove somebody's brand new rope by now.
So just a nother way you might die. Next time you see a manky leaver biner at the anchors of a sport route have a look at it one second after you lean back and commit to lowering through it.