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Near miss in the rain

Steve M

5-May-2004
10:46:30 AM

Last Thursday while on charity buttress at Arap's witnessed an outdoor ed student teaching some other students trad leading just as it started to sprinkle. i was about to head up the adjacent climb but decided it was a bit wet and bailed. As I was taking my rack off I heard a yell and saw the guy plummetting head first towards the ground. Thankfully some gear held and somehow his hand hit the wall before his head.

A couple of thoughts - he was on a grade 8 climb, he had done it before, but obviosly even with only light rain it became slippery and and his foot slimed off.
- His legs were on the wrong side of the rope. - His helmet cam in pretty handy - he had anchored his belayer to the ground saving probably about 2m of his fall (he was a lot heavier) and probably saving him from serious injury - His belayer was obviously terrified by the incident.

About 5 min later to my surprise he was heading up again, despite the rain getting noticeably stronger. I'm pretty sure he survived though.

kieranl

5-May-2004
9:59:04 PM

No prizes for stupidity.
It's not like you're trying to hang out and lead a route on-sight, you're instructing so should be applying some safety principles.
That's one instructor we could do wihout.

Richard

6-May-2004
1:16:13 PM

>His belayer was obviously terrified by the incident.

They'll probably be super safety considerate for ever ! Maybe this instructor has given them a very memorable lesson - climbing is dangerous - and hence he's a really "good" instructor - while he survives!!

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