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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 5 of 6. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 60 | 61 to 80 | 81 to 100 | 101 to 120
Author
Accident at Arapiles: November 9th
widewetandslippery
24-Nov-2010
1:54:46 PM
Hows the fella who bounced going?
egosan
24-Nov-2010
2:25:57 PM
It is interesting to me that many people focus on the consequences of a bad fall when discussing helmet use. Personally it is the whistling passage of a widow maker that keeps me in a helmet.


Eduardo Slabofvic
24-Nov-2010
2:55:41 PM
Someone else spudded in on Monday. What happened to them? Were they wearing clean underpants? Did they have a hankie? Did they have 20 cents for phone call? Did they have an apple? Did they remember their homework? Did they wash their hands? Did they call their mum? Did they brush their teeth?

gordoste
24-Nov-2010
3:32:04 PM
All this has nothing to do with taking away your freedom so please refrain from deliberately inflammatory language like "helmet Nazi". I don't care if you wear a helmet or not when you're climbing somewhere else. I just think that if you're around me and there is loose rock or people walking around the top of the cliff, or it's a runout climb with ledges and chickenheads, you might want to consider what impact that has on people nearby and modify your behaviour. Of course, you're still free to be an asshole.

gordoste
24-Nov-2010
3:34:40 PM
On 24/11/2010 One Day Hero wrote:
>On 24/11/2010 ajfclark wrote:
>>
>>Unless they have an accident and end up in hospital. If your injuries
>>are more severe because you weren't wearing a helmet then your choice
>to
>>not wear a helmet has had an impact on the rest of us.
>
>You gotta be kidding? By that logic, I should get stuck into everyone
>I see having a smoke, every fat dude eating a lot-burger, every kid not
>studying hard (cause he might end up on the dole), every teenage chick
>getting knocked up, everyone who is using a wobbly ladder to clean their
>gutters...........it goes on and on. Do you really want to live in a society
>where you get every single action scrutinised on the basis of how it has
>potential to economically affect everyone else?

BTW in case it's not clear - my objection is not to the economic cost of possible injuries. It's to the lack of consideration you show others by choosing to take deliberate risks when you're near them.
One Day HEro
24-Nov-2010
3:58:03 PM
On 24/11/2010 gordoste wrote:
>BTW in case it's not clear - my objection is not to the economic cost
>of possible injuries. It's to the lack of consideration you show others
>by choosing to take deliberate risks when you're near them.

Then don't climb! You are taking deliberate risks every time you go climbing. Your deliberate risks may well be higher than those of the person next to you, even though you wear a helmet and they don't. The assumption that you are less risky than someone else based solely on a bit of fruit box on your noggin is the bit which I find offensive.

gordoste
24-Nov-2010
4:29:16 PM
I agree - helmets are definitely only one aspect of risk.

The question is not whether you're more or less risky than someone else, it's whether the people around you are OK with your risk-taking, considering they could be involved in picking up the pieces. Climbing partners accept it by agreeing to climb with you in the first place. Onlookers have the choice of walking away. If you're climbing next to a stranger who can't walk away due to being on belay, then they have no choice and that's where I think some consideration needs to be shown.

shiltz
24-Nov-2010
4:35:44 PM
I recall Todd Skinner died in an abseiling accident, could have been wearing a helmet but I think his fall was due to harness failure not falling rock and he fell a bloody long way. Dan Osman was rope jumping, probably without a helmet I would assume - not that it would have helped when the system failed anyway.
Hersey and Bachar both died soloing - maybe they fell after being hit by falling rock in which case a helmet could have helped. Hersey fell several hundred feet so a helmet wouldn't have helped when he landed. I'm not sure how far Bachar fell, I don't think anyone was there when it happened and most of the posts at the time were pure speculation.
Wendy
24-Nov-2010
4:52:41 PM
On 24/11/2010 shiltz wrote:
>I recall Todd Skinner died in an abseiling accident, could have been wearing
>a helmet but I think his fall was due to harness failure not falling rock
>and he fell a bloody long way. Dan Osman was rope jumping, probably without
>a helmet I would assume - not that it would have helped when the system
>failed anyway.
>Hersey and Bachar both died soloing - maybe they fell after being hit
>by falling rock in which case a helmet could have helped. Hersey fell
>several hundred feet so a helmet wouldn't have helped when he landed.
>I'm not sure how far Bachar fell, I don't think anyone was there when it
>happened and most of the posts at the time were pure speculation.

I wasn't refering to helmet wearing, I was responding the assertion (or at least a roudabout kind of assertion) that hard climbers don't die climbing. I guess they died pretty much from the poor judgement bit - regarding the condition of their gear, their capabilities, the conditions. But climbing accidents and fatalities are not exclusively the realm of beginners, even though they are overrepresented
Wendy
24-Nov-2010
4:56:23 PM
On 24/11/2010 shiltz wrote:
>Easy routes are frequently more dangerous that hard routes in my opinion.
> Most commonly because there are more ledges to hit than on the typically
>steeper and more sustained hard routes. Also, a much higher proportion
>of routes in the 25+ range are bolted, particularly at Araps and around
>the Gramps

Here we go again ... where does this assertion that bolts make climbing safer come from??? A bolt flew out of You're Terminated in the wind years ago. gfdonc posted about one unclipping itself. They can be in shitty places leaving you with bad falls, run outs, desperate clips and how the hell do bolts affect helmet wearing anyway?
Wendy
24-Nov-2010
5:21:28 PM
On 24/11/2010 One Day Hero wrote:
>On 24/11/2010 ajfclark wrote:
>>
>>Unless they have an accident and end up in hospital. If your injuries
>>are more severe because you weren't wearing a helmet then your choice
>to
>>not wear a helmet has had an impact on the rest of us.
>
>You gotta be kidding? By that logic, I should get stuck into everyone
>I see having a smoke, every fat dude eating a lot-burger, every kid not
>studying hard (cause he might end up on the dole), every teenage chick
>getting knocked up, everyone who is using a wobbly ladder to clean their
>gutters...........it goes on and on. Do you really want to live in a society
>where you get every single action scrutinised on the basis of how it has
>potential to economically affect everyone else?

That's a somewhat less politely worded version of my thoughts ... despite the popularity of moaning about nasty risk takers costing society when something happen, if anyone really wanted to complain, it should definately be about crappy lifestyles, smoking and drinking, because the consequences of these fill our hospitals and the numbers are only rising. The govt's not funding massive campaigns to try and increase helmet wearing because the cost to society of climbers not wearing them is more miniscule than miniscule.
dalai
24-Nov-2010
5:37:57 PM
On 24/11/2010 widewetandslippery wrote:
>Hows the fella who bounced going?

Good question WWS, does anyone know?

As to the rest, please move it over to the helmet thread.
egosan
24-Nov-2010
10:32:46 PM
On 24/11/2010 dalai wrote:
>On 24/11/2010 widewetandslippery wrote:
>>Hows the fella who bounced going?
>
>Good question WWS, does anyone know?
>
>As to the rest, please move it over to the helmet thread.

Third hand from a week ago:

After the scary helmetless wack on the head, the bouncer was stumbling around the hospital getting his balance back. Most importantly he was on his feet. He is young and fit. He probably will come through fine.

shiltz
25-Nov-2010
10:53:42 AM
On 24/11/2010 Wendy wrote:
>Here we go again ... where does this assertion that bolts make climbing
>safer come from??? A bolt flew out of You're Terminated in the wind years
>ago. gfdonc posted about one unclipping itself. They can be in shitty
>places leaving you with bad falls, run outs, desperate clips and how the
>hell do bolts affect helmet wearing anyway?

I agree that bolts aren't always safe, can be poorly placed and hard to properly assess - I'm certainly not claiming they are perfect. You'd have to agree though that well placed bolts are very reliable. There are of course numerous mistakes that can be made clipping bolts but it is still simpler than learning to place good trad gear.
Anyway, here are a few more unfounded opinions to keep the debate rolling:
- I think "hard" climbers actually fall off a lot more often than beginner leaders.
- Despite this I think "hard" climbers are much less likely to be seriously injured in a fall because they understand gear placements (including bolts) and are often falling on steeper ground.
- I think beginner leaders are more likely to be injured in a fall due to poor gear placement, rope management and not considering what they might hit - ledges, chicken heads, etc.
- I don't think anyone could argue that a hard Arapiles face climb with shallow RP placements and long run-outs does not become a whole lot safer with a line of bolts up it and a stick clip ethic. Aside from the environmental objections to bolting most people also dislike the removal of risk where a trad ascent is possible and represents a greater mental challenge.

Since accident registers only track incidents where someone was seriously injured or killed I can't really back any of this up. It would be interesting to know how many falls are taken in an average weekend at Nowra and Arapiles and compare this against how many serious injuries occur.
Despite this, I enjoy climbing at Arapiles a lot more than Nowra and I am rarely fit enough to tackle anything harder than 24.
One Day Hero
25-Nov-2010
11:07:04 AM
Shiltz, you've gotten all confused. We're doing the helmet thing, the bolt thing is run on even weeks!

Eduardo Slabofvic
25-Nov-2010
11:39:29 AM
On 25/11/2010 shiltz wrote:
>
>Anyway, here are a few more unfounded opinions

Falling off is also a skill unto itself. And not all falls start out the same way, meaning sometimes you jump, sometimes you blow the move, sometimes you pop off when you're not ready, sometimes you just discover that you're airborne, gear may rip and you go further than expected, you've got a crap belayer and go further than expected, you're belayer is using a Gri Gri and you nearly die as a result of the bad habits they have developed from using the device incorrectly.

shiltz
25-Nov-2010
11:59:24 AM
On 25/11/2010 One Day Hero wrote:
>Shiltz, you've gotten all confused. We're doing the helmet thing, the bolt
>thing is run on even weeks!

Bugger, I thought we were back to bolts this week. Anyway, if I stayed on helmets I was going to be moved along to a different thread.

shiltz
25-Nov-2010
12:15:47 PM
On 25/11/2010 Eduardo Slabofvic wrote:
>Falling off is also a skill unto itself.

A skill that I didn't really practise at all in my first few years leading. I'm still a long way from mastering it despite getting a lot more practise over the years.
I have first hand experience of having the rope wrapped around my arm, grabbing at and dislodging gear, getting inverted, pendulums and the resulting bruises, inactive gri gri belays resulting in sprained ankles, belayer as crash pad and many more I'd rather not remember.
hargs
25-Nov-2010
12:42:41 PM
> ... belayer as crash pad ...

I like this idea: I imagine leaders moving their belayers around like cricketers shifting sightscreens: "About a metre left...", waves hand, "back... that's right, just there, thank you."

shiltz
25-Nov-2010
12:49:26 PM
On 25/11/2010 hargs wrote:
>> ... belayer as crash pad ...
>
>I like this idea: I imagine leaders moving their belayers around like
>cricketers shifting sightscreens: "About a metre left...", waves hand,
>"back... that's right, just there, thank you."

Once they're in place I recommend anchoring them down so they can't opt out.

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There are 120 messages in this topic.

 

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