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Chockstone Forum - Accidents & Injuries

Report Accidents and Injuries

Topic Date User

Grounder at SICG 26-Oct-2009 At 11:42:46 AM garbie

Message

On 26/10/2009 anyclimber wrote:

>Running a climbing gym is pretty much a Risk Management job. Now Risk
>management is all about
>indentifying the risk, controlling them and than monitoring! From what
>I can see on my regular visit
>there is hardly any floor stuff, not much of the monitoring goes on and
>that’s where the accidents can
>be avoided.

We monitor as best we can, given the large size of the gym, but accidents can't really
be avoided by monitoring - you would need to catch someone doing the wrong thing as
soon as they do it. You would therefore need a staff/climber ratio of one-to-one to have
any chance of stopping a potentially dangerous situation as it happened. We provide a
facility that people can choose to visit if they wish and a safety system for climbing that
people are choosing to use. All we can do is warn people of the dangers, give them
safety instruction, and then its their responsibility for their own safety. Its just like
driving a car - no one is sitting next to you stopping you running off the road. It sounds
harsh but climbing centres or any such facilities would not exist if they were responsible
for everyone's total safety as soon as they entered the door. Neither would a lot of other
organised sports.

>On a Sundays at St Peters the place is packed with very novice climbers,
>kids running around
>everywhere, playing on the crash pads below the lead walls etc.. and there
>is absolutely no staff on
>the floor. The staff that is there is very young and unprofessional in
>my opinion.

Some are young, yes, but does that necessarily make them any worse as staff, or
unprofessional? Please let us know about specific issues and we will "provide
feedback" for our staff, thanks.

(And anyclimber, you didn't need to be anonymous, we wouldn't have banned you!)