A particularly nasty fall cut Calum's trip short. After lowering off he began to cough up blood and was taken to the hospital where he was told he'd broken/dislocated his thumb and fractured his ribs. He booked an early flight back to Scotland and required surgery to fix up his hand. He's out of the game for a couple of months, wish him well!
Ignoring the leg cetting caught on the rope, this is a pretty textbook case of getting short roped.
i.e.
Pretty tight rope at the moment of falling.
No soft catch.
Belayer even appears to be trying to yard in rope as Calum fell.
This appeared to be compounded by the leg caught on the rope which added to the whip factor as the rope came tight,
From the perspective of the cameraman it didn't look like a few metres of slack was going to cause any trouble and I reckon it would have prevented such a strong whip into the wall.
At 26 seconds, as he falls, he pushes off the rock hard with his left foot. Though the draw is at his waist, he managed to fall away from the rock. There were a few meters of slack, but when it comes tight he swings in hard (+ spinning motion from the rope around his leg) . If he didn't push out so hard there would be no issue.
I don't think he pushes off that hard ....
More to the point is that at that same point the belayer already has very little slack in the system, and yet is seemingly prepared to haul more slack in ?, which is what he does!, as well as bracing his foot so that he doesn't budge an inch?! Hmmmm .... Clearly belayer is the main issue ....
On 20/06/2015 Sabu wrote:
>The wrong person was wearing the helmet in this instance. Seriously, this
>guy is lucky he didn't sustain a head injury from that fall.
Nonsense. Helmets are designed to prevent injury from falling rocks, not injury to a falling climber, so it is far more important for the belayer to be wearing one. Otherwise, a climber could dislodge a rock and hit the belayer with it, potentially resulting in two deaths.
As for this specific incident, the problem was that the climber allowed the rope to get outside his leg, resulting in it getting caught in the rope during the fall. Wearing a helmet wouldn't have prevented that, and if the climber had landed on his head in this fall, even if he was wearing a helmet, he would have almost certainly suffered brain injury, a broken neck, or death. A climber who didn't let their feet get wrapped in the rope would have suffered a broken ankle at absolute worst. Helmets are not a panacea for bad technique.
Nobody is saying they are, but sh*t happens, and when it does you might be pleased you were wearing one. I bet you any money you like the chap in this video will be thinking about wearing one next time.
As for the fall, combo of factors for me. Certainly the belayer has to take some of the blame as everything he does, from taking in at the last minute to bracing hard with his front foot, ensures his climber gets a hard catch. Remove the flipping upside down though and it would just be an ankle jarrer.
Helmets may be rated based on a rockfall scenario but they will still help in a fall like that. Yes you may still have a head injury but the severity should be lessened.
And I think the belayer in the video did a pitiful job of giving a soft catch, it was like he was trying not to.
On 20/06/2015 Rawpowa! wrote:
>Helmets may be rated based on a rockfall scenario but they will still help
>in a fall like that. Yes you may still have a head injury but the severity
>should be lessened.
This.
>As for this specific incident, the problem was that the climber allowed
>the rope to get outside his leg, resulting in it getting caught in the
>rope during the fall. Wearing a helmet wouldn't have prevented that, and
>if the climber had landed on his head in this fall, even if he was wearing
>a helmet, he would have almost certainly suffered brain injury, a broken
>neck, or death. A climber who didn't let their feet get wrapped in the
>rope would have suffered a broken ankle at absolute worst. Helmets are
>not a panacea for bad technique.
Of course helmets aren't the magic bullet, no one is disputing that and there are clearly a number of factors to this fall, chiefly the leg behind the rope and the hard catch. Helmets cannot prevent anything from occurring but they certainly have the ability to lesson the consequences when shit goes wrong and given those consequences focus on the head and brain, anything to lessen them is extremely worth it.
The take home message for me from this video is that even in what is normally perceived to be a safer environment to climb without a helmet (overhanging sport) there is still a significant risk that warrants a need for them.
Seriously guys the real issue is not lack of helmet but rather bad belaying . . .
There should be far more slack in the system then there is, no rope should be taken in, and the belayer should be moving forward to help absorb the shock in the system.
Had any of these things been done individually the end result would have been lessened and if all had been done perfectly then nothing at all would have happened, apart from having a funny video of someone falling upside down . . .
Yes it is an example of how things can go pear shaped and that helmets can help in such situations, and yes there are some possible rope positioning issues (which are basically irellevant if you do the move and don't fall) but the bottom line is the belaying . ..
I can't see how clipping another draw is going to make the belayer belay any better . . .
And if there is a bolt there then it's a dogging bolt, not meant to be clipped if actually climbing the route ...
It is a bit more difficult than you think belaying that route as the start goes up a low angle slab with a highish first bolt. a soft catch is very difficult as, once off you feet, you get dragged/slammed into the slab in front of you. More slack in the system would have helped for sure.
Difficult belay ? Irrelevant really to having more rope out and absorbing some of the peak force with your body compared to having little slack then taking in and bracing so that the belayer doesn't move...
As to being dragged or slammed, sometimes you gotta take one for the team - minor inconvenience for the belayer can help avoid a world of pain for the leader . . .
On 22/06/2015 Macciza wrote:
>Difficult belay ? Irrelevant really to having more rope out and absorbing
>some of the peak force with your body compared to having little slack then
>taking in and bracing so that the belayer doesn't move...
It isn't irrelevant if having more slack out means falling further and hitting rock below. Getting the balance right isn't always easy. You may be right that having more rope out would have had a better result. In some circumstances though it can result in a worse outcome.
Regarding helmets; Falling unexpectedly can often result in an uncontrolled landing/collision with the wall. Personally I think helmets and other precautions are important in many circumstances. (I'm against compulsory helmets for bicycles though.)
The point was that the proposed fact of it being a difficult belay was irrelevant to amount of slack . .
The issue of having more slack out and hitting rock below isn't really relevant here . . .
Having more rope out (then that guy, not taking any in and not bracing oneself) will almost always be better, any worser outcomes are the exception not the rule. And sometimes require dropping people even further . . .