I was just reading John Long's book, and thought it would be cool to share some of our own "close calls". This has probably been done, but what the hey.
I'll start:
I was building a climbing gym in SoCal about 10 years ago, and decided to take a break from mixing and filling gaps with Bondo. I think I must have been a bit wacked from the fumes, and I was alone late working.
There was a corner of the gym that had been completed and had holds on it, so I booted up and started up the dihedral. The floor was a hardwood gym floor, and I had no crash pad, but the holds were big and the stemming good, so I proceeded upwards. As I climbed, I passed round holes in the wall, some big and some small, that would eventually get texture inserts to break up the regularity of the flat panels.
I went up and down the 30 foot wall several times, and as I approached the top of the dihedral for the third or fourth time, my calves started feeling a little pumped. There was a good sized jug at the top, so I went a bit further, hung off the jug and shook my legs out, hanging by both hand from the large, flat jug. As I went to shake out my right hand, the hold spun to the left where I was hanging from my other hand, and I went straight over backwards, plummeting upside down towards the wood floor 25 feet below.
The next thing I remember is my head whacking something, and as I recovered from my diziness, I could hardly believe I was even alive. As I opened my eyes, I looked around and the whole gym was upside down and the floor was less than 3 feet from my head. The back of my knees hurt like a sonofabitch, and my head was resting against the wall.
Here’s what happened: apparently as I plummeted, flailing, both of my legs caught in one of the holes that the round texture panels go in, saving me from major injury or death. I pulled myself up and gingerly climbed down the wall, the bruises on the back of my knees blooming already. Other than that, I was unscathed
I still cannot for the life of me figure out how, pitching off backwards on a vertical wall, my legs got caught. I swear to this day that some guardian angel gave me a push back into that wall so my legs would catch.
