Trust and your climbing partners (accidents)

[archenemy]

Most bad stories seem to start out with "I was starting to climb in colorado"

and end up with being lowered while unconscious

[selkirk]

Dude i've got friends on Colorado! What the hell they were thinking when they moved there i'll never know. It's fun listening to the one who hate's snow bitch though. Prior to that he lived in Jackson hole

 

Actually saw the aftermath of the lowering accident. Good to hear your mending. Did anyone ever figure out what actually happened? That's the 2nd gri-gri accident i've heard of this spring.

 

A friend was learning to aid climb and nearly decked from 30ft when her top piece popped, and her belayer somehow managed to get the gri-gri fouled with her tag-line. She stopped all of 2 ft off ground

[Rad]

Sorry to hear of your fall. Trust may take longer to heal than your injuries.

 

At VW the belay test is with your own ATC and then they set you loose to belay with GriGris - with no training on them or test that you know how to use them. That seems like a screwy system. Perhaps they've improved it since I tested some years ago...

 

I had used ATCs for years but never touched a grigri before I first went to VW. I figured it out, and still don't like lowering people, but I've never dropped anyone.

 

................

 

Wow! That rhymed.

 

I'm a poet and I didn't no it.

 

Dude, looks like you're the poet who can't spell it.

[minx]

yikes! i hate using a gri gri. i've actually only used one a few times. i'm sure there's good reasons that the gyms require it but i just don't like it. i'm way more comfortable with my atc or reverso.

 

glad that you're healing OK. trust--well, time might help. climbing with familiar faces will help. good luck!

 

also, kudos for not "outing" your partner. it might've been careless which totally sucks but probably not malicious.

[MountaingirlBC]

Glad ur going to be ok... I think minx is probably right... the physical injuries will probably heal faster than your head space.

 

As for your partner, unless he's a COMPLETE moron (in which case.... out him) I would hope/expect that he's probably going to be a pretty conciencious belayer from now on.

[kix]

I throw my pads down and have no one to blame but myself if I miss.

 

a spotter almost knocked my bong over once. scary moment.

[cdurf]

Wow. I'm guessing you'll never climb with the same confidence again. Get well.

 

What diameter rope do they use at the gym?

 

Do you think he just used his left hand and levered the grigri without using a break hand on the break side of the rope?

 

Where you leading the climb? I see people belaying leaders with some pritty poor technic. Like squeeze the Gri gri closed with their left hand and use their right on the climbers side of the rope and pull rope out.

[Keith_Henson]

She wasn't on the route next to yours was she?

Edit:Not work safe

Edited July 3, 2006 by Peter_Puget

[marylou]

I wish they'd allow people to use their ATCs at the VW. I hate those #%!!! grigri things. I have, on many occasions, belayed through my ATC at VW when out of sight of the front desk.

 

Thanks for sharing your story. I hate Grigris, but never realized just how easy to drop someone with one.

[rockmum]

Very sorry to hear about your fall. A gym fall is especially hard, because the only risks indoors are subjective (I think). I had a similar ride but luckily was caught inches short of the floor. I believe the problem comes from inappropriate use of the gris-gris. It is a very good belay device, but not foolproof as some would assume. Many people use the handle as a way to control the run of the rope, which I consider unsafe. The handle is meant to be released in the event of a fall, catching the rope in the cam inside, by pinching it. There will be some run before the rope is caught, but it works. Nevertheless is the belayer is using the handle as a way of controlling rope run, and accident can happen. The best way to use the gris-gris is to open the handle with one hand and use the other hand as a break hand, in the same way one uses an atc, as a passive belay device. This is made even easier if one uses the offset biner that is attached to the floor anchor, which the belay side of the rope can be clipped through, providing more friction, and then belay from the other side of that. The gym staffs always try to stress proper use, but often an experienced climber may not have checked into how the mechanism should be used, and may be lead checked, etc., without having really examined how the device actually works. I think every climber is inherently obligated to examine all working gear and understand it and we shouldn't overlook that obligation even when someone else has set up a belay system for us. A person who doesn't use the gris-gris should open it up, examine the system and understand how it works. This may have not been what caused your accident, but it's what happened to me.

[RuMR]

thanks mom...

[montypiton]

you are describing a phenomenon which, in legal circles, is labeled "negligence". if this moron is not paying your medical bills, he damn well should be...

 

as for trusting future belayers, take the advice of the posters who say they fall-test belayers they don't know; furthermore, when testing an unknown belayer, make your test with an eye to protecting yourself. Conduct your test fall in a location where you are certain you can land safely should your belayer fail the test. Belay testing shows your new partner you are serious about protecting both of you, and it will earn you dependable partners.

[chris]

I was dropped aproximately 20m, to the deck, by my belayer in 1990. He thought I was down climbing the 5.7 slab route I had just finished leading, and I thought he was going to lower me. I was lucky to walk away with a severly sprained wrist and a bone bruise on my left ass cheek that kept me sitting on half of a chair for the next three weeks.

This was before Gri-gri's, and he was using a simple tube device. Apparently my weighting the rope shocked him so much that the brake strand was pulled from his light grip and he couldn't grab the whipping rope before I hit the deck. We had climbed with each other numerous times, and we climbed together again after my wrist healed up.

 

In another incident in 1996, I watched my friend Dan allow the rope end snake through his hand and belay device, dropping Amy the last three or four meters onto her ass. She walked away with nothing more than the shakes. This incident occurred on a route that all three of us were familiar with - the common practice was to downclimb the last bit (this was before 70m ropes were commonly sold).

 

The lesson in both of these cases is attention. Both accidents were preventable by attentive belayers (a stopper knot in the second incident too). In the first incident, a Gri-gri probably would have saved me a month of discomfort and a season of overcoming my fear of being lowered from a climb. Even now I'm more comfortable rappelling than lowering.

 

Gri-gri's have saved me too. This winter I took a 40+ footer in El Potrero, which lifted my 110 lbs belayer up to the first bolt - 20+ feet off the ground. If she hadn't been using a Gri-gri (she intentionally was), what were the odds that she would hold onto the break strand while being cheese-grated across the limestone?

 

Nonetheless, you have to trust your belayer. You have to. Because the chance that your partner might make a mistake is a subjective hazard of the sport, and you can't claim negligence because they made a mistake, no more than your belayer has the right to claim negligence when that obviously loose block you pulled on falls and breaks their arm (another accident I've witnessed, in which the belayer still held the fall!). Lawyers can practice climbing, but climbers can't practice law..