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Chockstone Forum - Accidents & Injuries

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Massive grounder at duck reach 14-Dec-2009 At 1:04:47 PM Jules15

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Hi guys,
Jules here, I was the belayer that fell, I am spending a few days at home a bit sore but getting better.

I would just like to say that the falls that both me and henry took on this gear were not typical lead falls, we were only able to get the first move and pulled up so that the nut was just below the climbers waist and the climber no more than 2m up the climb.

The falls were due to the fact neither of us quite had the length to grab a nice juggy hold that was laughing at our attempts to reach it. Predicted with calls of "Take in! Take in!", weight was put on the rope gently, with the climbers harness almost going through the quickdraw!
The nut took 5 "falls" like this with no creaking or cracking, this is why we were not particularly worried about placing more gear.

Because we were climbing on the other end of the rope we were about to untie so rob could abseil back down the 11 he had done, there were comments from both me and Henry like "one more and you'll get the first bolt", or "another go and we'll go for a swim" we had whats called "get-there-itis" and were not expecting nor aware of the gear popping out on us, which a climber should always be.

Very valuable lessons learnt.
Jules.