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Chockstone Forum - Accidents & Injuries

Report Accidents and Injuries

 Page 3 of 4. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 60 | 61 to 77
Author
Tito Traversa Killed in a Fall
kieranl
27-Aug-2013
11:57:45 AM
On 27/08/2013 Sabu wrote:
>Ok so by extension what stops authorities charging a retailer or manufacturer
>when a person ties into a rope incorrectly or incorrectly places a cam
>and hurts themselves? It seems pretty shady territory to me.
Pretty much nothing if someone gets a bee in their bonnet. That's why every cam and harness comes with pages of warnings and instructions, to try to mitigate the risk of being sued/charged.
kieranl
27-Aug-2013
12:12:52 PM
The crucial point here is that a 12-year-old kid is dead, possibly because someone miss-assembled some crucial life-safety equipment. Tito was a very good climber but he wasn't an adult, not even close to being one.
Consider if a 12-year-old bought a bike and rode it out of the shop and got killed by a truck at the first cross-road because the front-wheel fell off.
If it was in Australia I would expect that the coroner would want to call evidence from the manufacturer and retailer and any supervisory adults who were present. It's possible that could lead to the coroner recommending charges.

ajfclark
10-Apr-2014
8:01:15 PM
A similar accident cause: http://fireaviation.com/2014/01/26/cause-of-hoist-fatality-similar-to-earlier-rappel-death/
martym
21-May-2015
1:52:46 PM
On 21/05/2015 ajfclark wrote:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Tito_Traversa
>
>Tito Claudio Traversa (April 22, 2001 – July 5, 2013) was an Italian climber[1]
>who died of complications from a climbing accident in which he fell from
>a 50 feet (15 m) groundfall on July 5, 2013 at the age of 12.[2][3][4]
>An investigation by French officials revealed that his quickdraws were
>assembled incorrectly, with the carabiners threaded only though the rubber
>keeper, and not through the full-strength sewn loop at the ends of the
>quickdraws that are designed to support the climber's weight. According
>to public prosecutor Raffaele Guariniello, eight out of ten of Traversa’s
>quickdraws were assembled this way. Five people have been charged with
>manslaughter in the case. Among those charged is the owner of the company
>that produced the rubber keepers without instructions, as well as the owner
>of the gear shop that sold the keepers. The manager of the club that organized
>the climbing trip, as well as two of the instructors who were at the climbing
>site, have also been charged for failing to check the safety of the equipment.[5]

Thanks for that Andrew - amazing that Wikipedia has so much info for once.

Interesting that the instructors are being charged - especially since the manufacturer apparently hasn't provided them adequate information. Scary stuff... though losing a life is never to be taken lightly.

Considering how much info was already out there about these things breaking - a recall should have been announced IMO.

ajfclark
21-Dec-2015
6:26:01 AM
http://www.dpmclimbing.com/articles/view/three-will-face-trial-death-tito-traversa

ajfclark
17-May-2018
10:44:06 AM
One sentenced: http://eveningsends.com/climbing-instructor-sentenced-in-tito-traversas-death/

Climboholic
17-May-2018
3:06:52 PM
Sounds reasonable.

If you have to assign blame, the instructor present is the one responsible for safety. I'd argue that the mother who rigged the quickdraws is also culpable, as any responsible adult should realise you can’t substitute the safety link with a rubber band. If she wasn’t sure, she should have ASKED!

It's certainly not the fault of the climbing gym owner or the manufacturer of the quickdraws who weren't there on the day. Any suggestion otherwise is abdicating personal responsibility.
PThomson
18-May-2018
3:44:46 AM
This is a tricky one, as the news report describes the individual as the "unofficial instructor who was on-site" the day the accident occurred... certainly seems like a relatively small amount of assumed responsibility.

If precedent plays a part in Italian Law (I'm not sure if it does, or doesn't), it seems like a particularly dangerous precedent to set.

In Australia it's unlikely such a charge would win out:

"In order to establish manslaughter by criminal negligence, it is sufficient if the prosecution shows that the act which caused the death was done by the accused consciously and voluntarily, without any intention of causing death or grievous bodily harm but in circumstances which involved such a great falling short of the standard of care which a reasonable man would have exercised and which involved such a high risk that death or grievous bodily harm would follow that the doing of the act merited criminal punishment"

To be honest, I DON'T think it SHOULD win out (unless the individual in question was a paid professional in the field).

Regards,

- Paul

Duang Daunk
18-May-2018
4:51:16 AM
On 18-May-2018 PThomson wrote:
>it seems like a particularly dangerous precedent to set.

Reflected in the claytons 2 yr jail time bro.
PThomson
18-May-2018
5:04:47 AM
On 18-May-2018 Duang Daunk wrote:

>Reflected in the claytons 2 yr jail time bro.

If it's similar to our system (again, I don't know anything about Italian Law), the "claytons 2 year [GAOL] time" is irrelevant to the fact a precedent has been set. Once you set a precedent, the actual punishment is secondary (it's assessed against each case in question). The precedent would mean that future analogous cases MUST be decided in alignment with this ruling (unless overturned by a higher court).

And in reality, a criminal conviction is a criminal conviction. That in itself would hold life-changing ramifications for future prospects.

Additionally, if you read the article, it goes on to say that the gaol time (as well as, potentially, the verdict) can be changed if the prosecutors choose to pursue the case further.
(removed)
18-May-2018
9:51:02 AM
On 17-May-2018 Climboholic wrote:
>Sounds reasonable.

Doesn't sound reasonable to me. This from the country that jailed their earthquake scientists (initially, before global backlash caused the Supreme court to acquit) for not predicting the L'Aquila earthquake.

Culture of blame (and I married an Italian). Directly at odds with my ethos of taking personal responsibility.

Climboholic
18-May-2018
1:37:15 PM
I meant reasonable if you 'have to' assign blame.

In this case it was a kid that was killed, so your argument of taking personal responsibility is somewhat diminished. You could make an argument that the adults present were negligent in their duty of care to the minors.
brent
18-May-2018
2:12:10 PM
Does blame need to be assigned here? I doubt many climbers or instructors even knew it was possible assemble a quickdraw in this manner before this unfortunate accident occurred. How can they be blamed for failing to notice something they didn't even know they had to look for?
Dr Nick
18-May-2018
5:13:44 PM
I disagree, given that the various versions of those keepers have had warnings about not clipping in to them rather than using them to secure the bottom krab since forever. I find it interesting that apparently the manufacturer did not have a warning attached, but that could be a garbled account without knowing the exact model of draw. I don't recall ever getting a sling like that without some kind of warning.

I know the idea with climbing is to take personal responsibility, but we get our partners to double check our stuff for a reason - people stuff up. In the case of a young kid, I reckon the care factor has to go up and the accompanying climbers should have taken a closer look. I'd like to think that draws configured as shown would stand out like dog's balls, but I also know that I pay more attention to other people's gear than a lot of people (joys of working in a gym, I can still spot a non-doubled back buckle from a disturbing distance).
That said, I don't think it's a *criminal* lack of care given that Tito was a reasonably experienced climber .
(removed)
18-May-2018
8:51:05 PM
On 18-May-2018 Climboholic wrote:
>You could make an argument
>that the adults present were negligent in their duty of care to the minors.

Bingo
One Day Hero
19-May-2018
9:48:00 AM
On 18-May-2018 Climboholic wrote:
>In this case it was a kid that was killed, so your argument of taking
>personal responsibility is somewhat diminished.

The kid was leading a climb, not playing tiddlywinks. You notice how society doesn’t let kids drive or operate industrial machinery?
Part of the deal with climbing is that it's inherently dangerous. If you don't want to accept the possibility of getting killed, don't do it. If you don't want to accept the occasional kid getting killed, don't let them do it.
I feel sorry for the poor prick who was belaying other people's kids for little or no money, got ambushed by some death draws which nobody would notice, and is now hung out to dry by a bunch of fuchwads who think climbing is safe.
martym
19-May-2018
9:30:21 PM
On 19-May-2018 One Day Hero wrote:
>The kid was leading a climb, not playing tiddlywinks. You notice how society doesn’t let kids drive or operate industrial machinery?
>Part of the deal with climbing is that it's inherently dangerous. If you don't want to accept the possibility of getting killed, don't do it. If
>you don't want to accept the occasional kid getting killed, don't let them do it.
>I feel sorry for the poor prick who was belaying other people's kids for little or no money, got ambushed by some death draws which nobody would
>notice, and is now hung out to dry by a bunch of fuchwads who think climbing is safe.

There are checks and balances that let most of us go through our lives reasonably confident things work the way we expect them to. If you read the articles, you can see this is procedural; the people being charged are unlikely to serve any jail time. They will live with this the rest of their lives, that's enough.

The court just needs to be sure this isn't some awful insurance scam or something - and given how rare this is, I imagine the coroner has had to sit through a lot of meetings to even comprehend why a 12 year old was so high off the ground in the first place, let alone how quickdraws work. Again, based solely on the article - it seems someone who wasn't familiar with the equipment (sounds likely they did not read instructions that probably weren't made available) was at fault.

From the same website - the author wrote an article back in 2013 titled Don’t Make it Something It’s Not
"this was an accident that could’ve happened to any of us, regardless of age, gender, experience."
One Day Hero
20-May-2018
4:48:16 PM
On 19-May-2018 martym wrote:
>If you read
>the articles, you can see this is procedural; the people being charged
>are unlikely to serve any jail time. They will live with this the rest
>of their lives.

Having the conviction could cause all sorts of negative outcomes, from loss of work to being disallowed access to various countries for climbing holidays (or any other reason). Pretty shitty for somebody who did nothing wrong.

>From the same website - the author wrote an article back in 2013 titled
>Don’t Make it Something
>It’s Not
>"this was an accident that could’ve happened to any of us, regardless
>of age, gender, experience."

Fuch, Andrew Bisharat is the most annoying, sanctimonious climbing writer ever.......apart from that chick who only writes about sexism in climbing. Anyway, it couldn't happen to me, because I don't climb on quickdraws put together by my mates mum. Most of the responsibility lies with the parents, for letting their kid do an obviously dangerous activity. If tito hadda traversa a bit more anda climba up a bit less, I thinka he still be alive.

Duang Daunk
20-May-2018
6:37:56 PM
On 19-May-2018 One Day Hero wrote:
>I feel sorry for the poor prick who was belaying other people's kids for little or no money, got ambushed by some death draws which nobody would notice, and is now hung out to dry

On 20-May-2018 One Day Hero wrote:
>Pretty shitty for somebody who did nothing wrong.

>Anyway, it couldn't happen to me, because I don't climb on quickdraws put together by my mates mum.
>Most of the responsibility lies with the parents, for letting their kid do an obviously dangerous activity.

Maybe, maybe not...

There isn't much detail about the who and why in those articles bro, but maybe try and imagine this-

You're a kid, you climb well and are going climbing again with some adults, some of whom have experience in climbing, instructors even!
Maybe the following-
Self check routine?
Check.
Mate/belayer visual check routine?
Check.
...Not sure a visual for the rubber connects would've sufficed but how many climbers check their quickdraws by snapping them lengthwise as a test before weighting them?
Good to go bro!
Shit, what happened?

Who's quickdraws were those? Tito's? Instructor's? Belayer's?
Yeh it won't happen to you, because you check your own gear, so why didn't whoever owned those quickdraws that were involved check them prior?

If they belonged to the belayer/instructor then yeh, hang them out to dry.
If they belonged to Tito then hang the instructor out to dry for not instructing Tito in correct way to check his gear!
If they belonged to a non climbing mum, then you're right.

One Day Hero
20-May-2018
7:14:40 PM
Meh, you can't have it both ways. I don't know how young is too young to be leading, but it comes with certain risks which can't be managed by the adult on the ground. You gonna get some binoculars to make sure they've threaded up correctly?
If this acco happened to an adult it would be a one paragraph safety parable, and no criminal investigation. If kids are old enough to lead, they are old enough to die from the consequences of not checking their gear.

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There are 77 messages in this topic.

 

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