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Tribute Wall accident 11/09/2018 24-Sep-2018 At 3:17:50 PM renq

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I happened to be the belayer of the climber on Hot Play (16) during this incident.

After the climber easily top-roped Maiden China (15, directly left of Hot Play), we decided to give Hot Play a go on sport. The first bolt was stick clipped including rope and the second was stick clipped with a quickdraw only. After clipping the second, his waist was at the third bolt where he was struggling to get the third quickdraw in. He accepted he would take a fall. I didn't keep much slack in the system at that point sus of a ground fall (climber is around +10kg than me). Inevitably he took a sharp fall and his foot landed on an uneven part of the wall. He ended up hanging on the rope 2m from ground? ground was also uneven, basically two boulders of either side of the fall path.

In hindsight, we should have tried it on top rope first. It was the last climb of the day (red flag!!), incident occurred at 4pm, and we probably should not have pushed new terrain so late in the day. Also, maybe we should have encouraged down-climbing sooner rather than encouraging to make the clip until failure. We probably should have also practiced falling outdoors (we had over 10 hours dedicated solely to falls practice indoors).

He ended up dislocating his ankle and breaking the bottom of his fibula. He's now recovering, in good spirits with a plate and a few screws in his leg. There were five of us at the time of the incident, two were able to stay with with the climber and the other two got the paramedics. All of us are so so grateful for the team involved in the rescue and hope some people got the cake we dropped off at Horsham ambulance center! He did have ambulance cover, thank goodness.

Seconded, check your ambulance cover!