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Grigri abseiling accident

tastrad

9-Feb-2015
11:20:35 AM

Whilst abseiling off a route at Stacks Bluff (150m rap) with a grigri, a mate was 5m from the ground when he suddenly flipped upside down and fell onto his head and somersaulted into the bushes. Thankfully he was wearing a helmet. It seems the grigri got caught in his leg loop and held the lever open, flipping him upside down and causing the device to lose all friction on the rope. Anyone ever heard of this happening? Always thought grigris were safe to abseil with but now I'm not so sure.

Snacks

9-Feb-2015
11:54:10 AM

I can't even imagine how that is possible if you're doing a controlled descent feeding the rope through your brake hand...

Though, I can kinda see how if you abseil down quite quickly, then suddenly "lock-off" the Gri-Gri that you'll bungee up and can awkwardly twist backwards and have all kinds of shit happen... especially on a 150m abseil...

Alot of people rely on the handle to control the speed of the descent and simply let the rope feed freely through their hand and let the handle go as a way of stopping. Usually bungeeing the whole way down their abseil whenever they stop. Maybe your mate does this?

Tastrad

9-Feb-2015
11:59:59 AM

Its possible he might have stood on a small ledge near the ground and thus put some slack in the system, causing the grigri to flop down and get hooked in the leg loop

mikllaw

9-Feb-2015
1:00:41 PM

The Grigris poor controllability gets even worse as the rope weight beneath decreases. Not really for abseilling, definitely not for trad.
(disclaimer, I use a grigri extensively for bolting)

Snacks

9-Feb-2015
1:59:07 PM

Abseiling with the device 30cm away from the belay loop on a sling would help prevent that happening as the device would always be away from the body by the time the rope is re-tensioned.

But still for that to happen with the ledge he must have sat back on the rope without holding his device.

I'd argue that if he did the same thing with an atc he'd be just as screwed and it has very little to do with the device...

Though it's a shame he didn't have one of those dodgy ones where the handle snaps. haha

IdratherbeclimbingM9

9-Feb-2015
3:27:07 PM

On 9/02/2015 tastrad wrote:
>Whilst abseiling off a route at Stacks Bluff (150m rap) with a grigri,(snip)

Just for interest sake;
A single long length abseil, or a re-anchored enroute abseil?
What diameter rope?

Tastrad

9-Feb-2015
3:32:51 PM

it was a 200m static line 11mm thick, and we rapped from a ledge about 50m from the top

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