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Chockstone Photography
Australian Landscape Photography by Michael Boniwell
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Chockstone Forum - Accidents & Injuries

Report Accidents and Injuries

 Page 1 of 5. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 60 | 61 to 80 | 81 to 83
Author
worst near accidents I've seen
mikllaw
21-Sep-2010
1:24:19 PM
I keep chuckling about these, but they could have been pretty horrible:-
- At the Freezer a few years back a bloke was teaching some n00bs. "You clip into the belay loop to belay or abseil, not the gear loops" Fair enuff I thought till he continued "but you can belay on the gear loops, cos they make them strong enuff in case you get confused"

- Three years back at Thompson's Point there was a guy who had lost his belay plate and was belaying with a piton brake abseil setup from canyoning-

he had set the piton on the underside of the biner, so every time there was slack the piton would swing away and take his girlfriend off belay. I gave her my stitch plate and suggested she get a new belay device or a new boyfriend.

- Nic Taylor (FA of Country Road 24 in 1977) told me that he did Leaning Tower in Yosemite. A photographer met them, said he had gear and would pay $500 if they towed a rope up for him to jumar up. He handed them a very new rope, they lead off. The first pitch is overhung and gains about 200m of instant exposure. They were on the hanging belay and he cut loose out into space. A few minutes later they heard a noise like a steam train below, looked down to see the photographer thrahing up the rope on jumars, with his large camera bag on his shoulders swinging across the aching void.

The noises got louder and more desperate until he was about 15m below the belay, the climbers suddenly realised he had no harness or slings, just a jumar in each hand. They were able to get a loop of rope under his feet and he fell with it under his arms and survived.

evanbb
21-Sep-2010
1:47:49 PM
I was leading a route out on Orroral Ridge 2 years or so ago, wife belaying. The route was easy, and followed a big flake up and left. The guide description however put doubt in my mind as it included the phrase 'known to be the home of a large and aggressive brown snake'. It was years ago, but, you never know. Could be an ancestral brown snake home.

Anyway, far enough up that I could hurt myself Bec says in her worried voice 'Evan, come down right now. Do it quickly and do not fall. I mean right now. Like now.'

And so I reversed the moves and was standing next to her wondering what was going on? I was getting belayed off a gear loop.


I've also seen a pig wandering through a village in Laos. Big bloody pig. We'd heard about how dangerous coconut trees were and the ground was littered with them. Then, as we were watching a coconut of literally 4kg fell from about 20m and landed not more than 6 inches in front of the pig's snout. Would have dropped him stone dead in an instant. He poked the nut with his snout and kept moving.
citationx
21-Sep-2010
1:50:48 PM
On 21/09/2010 evanbb wrote:
>Would have dropped him stone dead in an instant. He poked the nut with
>his snout and kept moving.

But you would've been ok because he was using a gri-gri?
Paul
21-Sep-2010
2:03:53 PM
I was doing some really easy climb in the orgin pipes with some beginers and the couple climbing ahead of us who were on the second belay ledge, they managed to drop their rope, in its entirity (untied from their harness). they had to ask me to abseil down to the ground and retrieve it for them. When I enquired why they had untied from the rope their answer was to flake it out.

Also saw someone belaying with a snap link carabiner and a stich plate once, they said it was to save weight (they were sport climbing).

climbertron
21-Sep-2010
2:06:58 PM
I was about to step backwards over a cliff edge at point-perp to rap down when I did a quick safety check and found that the rope did't go through the biner.

At the time, that was my second abseil ever.
f_abe
21-Sep-2010
2:30:05 PM
Climbing at Morialta years ago with some mates who didn't climb much, the dude climbing (110kg and I'm erring on the polite side) reaches the top and gets lowered rather quickly. A few seconds after reaching the ground they erupt into maniacal laughter. I thought it was just cos they were so stoned but it turns out he had been belayed off a gear loop. I since rate black diamond harnesses.
A year or so later, I got the same belayer to belay me at spurt in the arvo after driving over. Trying to clip the second bolt, I turn around to see why I'm not getting any slack despite my calls. I see him on his knees about 5 metres back from the cliff holding onto the rope with both hands. "I got you, man!" he lets me know. I clip straight into the bolt with draws. Turns out he'd had a bender on the hard stuff, hadn't slept for a couple of days, and was experiencing a little difficulty interpreting what was and what wasn't.
There must be thousands of near miss stories out there...so long as you can laugh about them you can learn from them...

nmonteith
21-Sep-2010
2:30:30 PM
On 21/09/2010 Paul wrote:
>and the couple climbing ahead of us who were on the second belay ledge,
>they managed to drop their rope, in its entirity (untied from their harness).

cough cough. I did that once when both myself and my partner decided to throw the rope down simultaneously when rigging a rap on a mulitpitch. Sadly neither of us had it attached to anything and it sailed out of our fingers and down the cliff. Lucky for us an end snagged on a flake about 8m down and I made a big chain of quickdraws and slings and could reached it. We would have spent a hilarious night out on the cliff i imagine waiting for someone to come and find us hanging off a belay 50m up a cliff without a rope.

I once had someone belay me off such a small slung boulder that I could kick it over when I got to the top. I was not impressed!

Eduardo Slabofvic
21-Sep-2010
2:32:47 PM
I was at the hanging belay on top of first pitch of the East Face Route on Crookneck, not doing anything but looking at the view. There were three others with me in the party. The leader was nearing the top of the second pitch when he pulled off a block about the size of a small microwave oven. It hit him in the head and knocked him out (no helmet) he fell and snapped the old pitons which were his last two runners. He went a fair way down. The rock went even further hitting another member of our party square in the middle of her thigh, making the insides of her leg be on the out side. It continued on its merry way, missing my head by what seemed like centimetres (again, no helmet). Lots of blood and gooey yellow ooze everywhere as I held each side of the broken femur while we improvised a splint out of slings, t-shirts, and a booty friend remover that we had brought along as there was rumour of a cam that had walked into the crack on the third pitch.

Everyone lived happily ever after.

nmonteith
21-Sep-2010
2:35:27 PM
That's not a near accident - that's an accident!!

Eduardo Slabofvic
21-Sep-2010
2:38:38 PM
No, I was fine. I went out dancing afterwards

ajfclark
21-Sep-2010
2:41:46 PM
On 21/09/2010 nmonteith wrote:
>That's not a near accident - that's an accident!!

It's a near miss... *Bang* "Oh, it nearly missed"...
gfdonc
21-Sep-2010
2:54:36 PM
Climbing in Central Gully on Slap the Philanthropist, my climbing partner was leading. She got up to the ledge OK, got wires in above the ledge then more gear on the steeper section, just below the crux.

I looked up to watch her clip and, silhouetted against the sky, something didn't look quite right. I yelled. Turns out, she had tied the knot with a nice long tail, and had clipped the tail end of the rope through the draw, not the 'live' rope. oops.

After fixing the issue, she got up to the jug above the crux, but totally pumped, and fell off. Without that piece of gear clipped she probably would have hit the ledge.
egosan
21-Sep-2010
2:56:50 PM
My climbing career is not long enough to have witnessed any near accidents. However thinking back to my skiing career, the list is long. The countless times I saw some poor fool miss breaking themselves or someone else don't really register. It is the collisions I remember. The breaking of bones and lives. Certainly seems from my anecdotal experience that skiing is far more dangerous than climbing.
citationx
21-Sep-2010
3:04:00 PM
neil wrote:
>I once had someone belay me off such a small slung boulder that I could
>kick it over when I got to the top. I was not impressed!

My first ever trip to Arapiles, Easter 2004. We'd spent 12 hours of the day driving from Sydney to arrive at 10pm. I was so excited that it didn't take much for my partner to convince me we should do a climb then - Diapason. I led the (what I considered slippery) first pitch and he the second. Upon topping out on the ledge at the top of the second pitch I looked at his anchor - two "bomber" cams under a rock. I asked him if it was solid and he replied that he couldn't budge the rock when he placed them. I picked it up and moved it further from the edge of the ledge. He, in the interim made a better anchor...

Gavo
21-Sep-2010
3:09:49 PM
On 21/09/2010 egosan wrote:
>My climbing career is not long enough to have witnessed any near accidents.

Really? I thought you were an old hand Sol... damn I was going to ask you to teach me to lead...

DOC
21-Sep-2010
3:11:26 PM
A group of us went out the the Grampians and decided on Threadneedle. Three of us set up on the little narrow belay at the top of the second pitch. A couple of us with helmets and one without. One lead out onto the third pitch while the rest of us entertained ourselves beat boxing and seeing how far out from the wall we could spit.. All Class!!
Our leader was about half way through the pitch when she very calmly said the words "Your gunna cop it!". We thought she meant the spit or failed beat boxing and replied all was ok.
She again calmy repeated " Your gunna cop it". At this moment a small shower of rocks wizzed past with one hitting my foot. Our unhelmetted member tried to tuck his head under the small overhang.
Once the rocks passed I calmly informed her we were all ok, to which she replied... "NO, your gunna cop it!
I looked up and saw she was holding a block, the size of a small tv up against her chest and was currently trying to push it back into place.
Entertaining to watch three people all tied in try to move, with nowhere to go!
She managed to push the block back and we all avoided that line to get off the climb.
Once all safely at the top we hysterically laughed about how "your gunna cop it" is calm speak for YOU ARE ALL GUNNA DIE!!!

ajfclark
21-Sep-2010
3:17:11 PM
On 21/09/2010 Gavo wrote:
>Really? I thought you were an old hand Sol... damn I was going to ask you to teach me to lead...

He hasn't seen any near accidents, just actual accidents... :-P
egosan
21-Sep-2010
3:43:51 PM
An old hand at doing dangerous things with stiff consequences for failure. An old hand at teaching. An old hand at learning from hard lessons. An old hand at healing. An old hand at mouthing off like an asshole. Yet when it comes to climbing I am just an eager pup compared to the longtoothed, mangy, limping, ranch dogs that troll this forum.

On 21/09/2010 Gavo wrote:
>On 21/09/2010 egosan wrote:
>>My climbing career is not long enough to have witnessed any near accidents.
>
>Really? I thought you were an old hand Sol... damn I was going to ask
>you to teach me to lead...
PDRM
21-Sep-2010
3:45:06 PM
Once got to the top of a pitch to find that I'd been belayed by a mates girlfriend off two 'trees' small enough to be clipped with biners...which is how she had constructed the 'anchor'

Paul

Gavo
21-Sep-2010
3:49:28 PM
On 21/09/2010 egosan wrote:
>An old hand at doing dangerous things with stiff consequences for failure.
>An old hand at teaching. An old hand at learning from hard lessons. An
>old hand at healing. An old hand at mouthing off like an asshole. Yet
>when it comes to climbing I am just an eager pup compared to the longtoothed,
>mangy, limping, ranch dogs that troll this forum.

Wow... thats deep

Ill have to keep an eye out for a mangy-looking limping ranch dog on the troll then!

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There are 83 messages in this topic.

 

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