Fatal Rappelling Accident in the Icicle

[olyclimber]

 

http://www.komotv.com/stories/44226.htm

[StreetBoss]

Any other news about this? Name or party members? Peace to her family!!

[rbwen]

The local radio station, KOHO, just reported that the body was recovered but they didn't have any more details and they are not yet releasing the name. It sounded like she was local, Seattle, and her climbing partner was from out of state. A witness helped him down off of the rappel. After the report they had a two minute talk about climbing safety from the sherrif's department (or S&R).

 

rbwen

[hippie]

I don't know names but both climbers were female. The victim was found with one strand of rope clipped into her device and about 30feet difference in the srand lengths, indicating that she had probably misclipped. A prusik backup would probably have saved her.

[Off_White]

The Daily Olympian reports the accident to have happened on Condor Buttress.

[foraker]

Heard the choppers this morning when I was camping at 8 mile. It was kind of early so we didn't think anyone had had an accident by then. Sad news!

[montypiton]

On July 2,two women experienced mainly on single-pitch sport routes chose Condorphamine Addiction for their first multi-pitch route. they completed the ascent, and one rappel of the descent, when one of the women mis-rigged on the second rappel and fell to her death, leaving her partner stranded one pitch below the top of Condor Buttress. A team climbing the same route behind the women witnessed the fall, and evacuated the surviving stranded partner. A team of Chelan County Sheriff's Deputies, and volunteers from the Chelan County Mountain Rescue Association accompanied one member of the rope team that rescued the survivor back to Condor Buttress, located the fallen woman's body, and was able to reconstruct, from the configuration of rope and rappel device, the most likely rappel failure scenario (one of two ossible rigging errors). Our findings and analysis will be publlished on this board when our report to the Chelan County Sheriff's office has been completed and submitted. The Woman's body was removed by helicopter early morning of July 3.

[XXX]

On July 2,two women experienced mainly on single-pitch sport routes chose Condorphamine Addiction for their first multi-pitch route. they completed the ascent, and one rappel of the descent, when one of the women mis-rigged on the second rappel and fell to her death, leaving her partner stranded one pitch below the top of Condor Buttress. A team climbing the same route behind the women witnessed the fall, and evacuated the surviving stranded partner. A team of Chelan County Sheriff's Deputies, and volunteers from the Chelan County Mountain Rescue Association accompanied one member of the rope team that rescued the survivor back to Condor Buttress, located the fallen woman's body, and was able to reconstruct, from the configuration of rope and rappel device, the most likely rappel failure scenario (one of two ossible rigging errors). Our findings and analysis will be publlished on this board when our report to the Chelan County Sheriff's office has been completed and submitted. The Woman's body was removed by helicopter early morning of July 3.

 

Seems a bit intense for your first multi pitch route doesnt it? I'm sorry to hear about this terrible accident

[sk]

what a tragedy. peace to her loved ones.

[layton]

I can only imagine the horror involved.

[lancegranite]

My deepest sympathies, what a sad situation.

[bagsers]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/276464_climber05.html

 

My condolences to her family. Very sad...

[olyclimber]

My condolences to all of Emily's friends and family, I'm sure I crossed paths with her at some point at Stone Gardens.

 

Please keep accident analysis related discussion in another thread, as show of respect. thanks.

[Gary_Yngve]

I met Emily in Vantage a month ago. Ruth and I had just topped out on the Sunshine Wall and were walking around to find the nearest rap anchor. We managed to walk past George and Martha and came to a route being top-roped. We waited for the climber (Emily) to finish, as we chatted with a Vantage regular who also just topped out and had some strong opinions regarding the Kropp plaque. When Emily got to the top she decided to have her partner lower her and let us clean their anchor and rap their rope.

 

Later in the day, I set up a fixed line for my friend Kevin to take photos of my styling Air Guitar. Emily was climbing one of the bolted lines to the right of Air Guitar, and Kevin got some pictures of her. She and her friend were nice folks.

[tivoli_mike]

My condolences as well. Seeing her photo in the P-I, I realize I had seen several times down at SG. Sad times...

[russ]

My girl friend and I were climbing the route when the accident happened. We went up and got Emily's partner. We were at the large ledge at the top of the 5.4 pitch (p3) and her partner was at the top of the 2nd 5.10b (p6). We're still pretty shook up, so can't comment much right now.

 

Montypiton - we have a couple more observations to relay for evaluation on the accident report. Send me a private message or email and I'll relay them.

 

- Russ

[Gary_Yngve]

Russ, good job getting everyone else down safely.

[jhamaker]

I prefer to perform one rap into the gully behind Condor Buttress and then walk off the route.

[sobo]

Probably not the best place to make that statement. See olyclimber's request further up the page.

[dr_agon]

What an agonizing night for those involved, knowing they must wait for the rescue...sense of dispair, impotence, self-criticism. That is just the worst. My best wishes to all involved.

[montypiton]

followup note: upon completion of our investigation of this accident, CCMRA investigators were struck by the staggering similarities between this incident and the fatality on Outer Space in 2003. Both were misrigged rappels that occurred one pitch below the top of a classic climb - and the circumstances were so similar that we could nearly have used the same accident report for both, simply changing dates, locations, and names. Food for thought...

[underworld]

"misrigged"

 

is this the place to ask for details of what that means in these two cases?

[DirtyHarry]

I think the climber only put one rope through the belay device and rappel carabiner.

[chucK]

Man oh man, I did this same thing (somehow only had one rope clipped in rap device) this last weekend. Fortunately I was spared as my climbing partner super-ropegun-lurker-awfulwidther-hansel noticed my gaffe before I started rapelling. Thank you thank you thank you thank you....

 

Hansel saves the day (and possibly my life) again!

 

Be careful out there everbody.

[Alpinfox]

Just to be extra extra pedanticly clear, here is how you can avoid dying due to this error:

 

1) rig your belay device for the rappel

2) while you are still connected to the anchor via your daisy or a sling or whatever, take up all the slack and transfer your weight onto your rappel device.

3) Lean back. Jerk backwards. Really weight that thing.

4) If you have mis-rigged your rappel device, this test should reveal that error

5) Only then should you disconnect your daisy/sling from the anchor and start rappelling.

 

I know we've probably all heard this before, but I thought I'd spell it out explicitly for anyone hoping to learn the take-home message from this accident. I don't ever do the prusik back-up thing while rappelling, I hardly ever tie knots into the ends of the rope, and I seldom wear a helmet while cragging, but I pretty much always do the steps above.