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Accident on Bunny Buckets on Sunday

maxdacat

12-Jun-2013
11:30:51 AM

wouldn't BBB be in the shade all day anyway? not really what i would choose for a winter climb....it was nice in the sun on the other side of the valley.

kieranl

12-Jun-2013
11:32:27 AM

On 12/06/2013 Wendy wrote:
>The Blueys air rescue service is pretty amazing. I'm not sure that the
>Vic air ambo service is that good for difficult rescues.
The NSW SCAT paramedics have a much wider range of operations than helicopter paramedics in Vic. An injured climber on a cliff in Vic quite possibly won't be treated by a paramedic until they are off the cliff.

WazACT

12-Jun-2013
1:33:48 PM

Some interesting comments .... and thanks Duplo and others for keeping things constructive as my own point of view is that knowing what went wrong is a good thing so people can learn from other peoples mistakes and hopefully not be repeated.
While I am still unaware of some exact details as to amount of slack etc as I was in the group leading the pitch above but yes there were some communication issues between leader and belayer due to the belaying position under the cave. I can say that the leader was the only one in our group of 4 who did not have exp leading trad but in saying that if I was honest and was in the other group I would prob not have had concerns at the time on him leading the pitch. Yes the climber was from a sport background but I would not place him in the numpty gym climber category either.
You are all quite welcome to disagree but my own position with what I saw on the day and from climbing with him previously is that barring some small comms issues, I mostly put it down to one of those unfortunate incidents that sometimes you can't predict or can't avoid.

mikllaw

12-Jun-2013
1:41:40 PM

It sounds like a pretty regular fall; but any fall on vertical and featured rock can be nasty.
It's a longish pitch so there will be a lot more rope stretch than one would expect.
If you aren't used to avoiding rope drag, you will get it. I don't think double ropes would reduce it much.
Desperate clips are made easier by hanging a sling on the piece rather than a short draw.
I guess having a few grades in hand would help avoid an epic.

On the plus side, there now seems to be phone reception, at least on the upper half of the route.


trog

13-Jun-2013
3:17:45 AM

On 12/06/2013 Wendy wrote:
>the french had a policy of free for genuine need, charging otherwise when
>I was over there.Which I'm sure is a highly debatable line, and I have
>no idea how they sorted it out. But there were a lot of rescues when I
>was there as well, partly because there are just a lot of people out there
>and it is a higher risk environment. But I'm sure also because people got
>themselves out of their depths in the same way as happens over here.
>
>The Blueys air rescue service is pretty amazing. I'm not sure that the
>Vic air ambo service is that good for difficult rescues.

I'm pretty sure on the Italian side there was a much stricter charge for unnecessary rescue, but the french side sounded free. Didn't test that out ourselves, but no-one we talked to that had been rescued (without injury) had been charged

Yep, people get caught out for all sorts of reasons, everywhere. But it did feel like many people assumed a heli rescue was a given over there. I don't reckon that's the case in the Blueys... could be wrong.

Wendy

13-Jun-2013
8:30:58 AM

On 12/06/2013 kieranl wrote:
>On 12/06/2013 Wendy wrote:
>>The Blueys air rescue service is pretty amazing. I'm not sure that the
>>Vic air ambo service is that good for difficult rescues.
>The NSW SCAT paramedics have a much wider range of operations than helicopter
>paramedics in Vic. An injured climber on a cliff in Vic quite possibly
>won't be treated by a paramedic until they are off the cliff.

That was the impression i had. Any idea how NSW ended up with a remote rescue paramedic heli and we didn't? It's not just climbers affected by it - any person in a off road location could be.

And Waz, I wasn't talking specifically about this group, who I have no idea about, but in general about the idea someone suggest that we need to somehow adapt our cliffs to prevent people getting out of their depth rather than people taking responsibility for making appropriate judgements and making the effort to learn appropriate skills. It's a bit like the "we need easy sport routes" debate, but probably even more concerning. Not too mention, I suspect ineffective.

kieranl

13-Jun-2013
9:09:33 AM

On 13/06/2013 Wendy wrote:
>On 12/06/2013 kieranl wrote:
>>On 12/06/2013 Wendy wrote:
>>>The Blueys air rescue service is pretty amazing. I'm not sure that the
>>>Vic air ambo service is that good for difficult rescues.
>>The NSW SCAT paramedics have a much wider range of operations than helicopter
>>paramedics in Vic. An injured climber on a cliff in Vic quite possibly
>>won't be treated by a paramedic until they are off the cliff.
>
>That was the impression i had. Any idea how NSW ended up with a remote
>rescue paramedic heli and we didn't? It's not just climbers affected by
>it - any person in a off road location could be.

I don't know the genesis of it but suspect it has something to do with Sydney's geography : there are cliffs all along the coast and up in the mountains within easy reach of a few million people. It guarantees lots of difficult rescues. One rescue team leader from NSW I met recently personally takes part in about 1 vertical rescue a week. So you're forced to develop strategies to deal with the situation.
Victoria on the other hand... apart from Police S&R there are only 4 vertical rescue teams in the state : Port Campbell, Portland, Stawell-Ararat and Natimuk. As I understand it, Vic helicopter paramedics aren't trained to go on rope with the vertical rescue teams. Presumably it's because of low demand so they don't invest in the training.

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