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Gri-gris - any failures? 1-Mar-2004 At 7:22:25 PM deadpoint

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I have seen four or five craters over the last few years, what did they have in common?

1. Gri Gri
2. Strong gym climbers new to the outdor game
3. Belayer had very limited experience in belaying lead climbing with any device
4. Belayer had not used a gri-gri many times

On one occassion I had a very good view of what happened. Belayer had his left hand loosely around rope 10cm above the gri-gri, right hand in a semi-lock off position. The climber fell and jerked the belayer upwards causing the gri-gri to hit the belayers left hand. This resulted in the gri-gri partially releasing, the belayer instinctively closed his grasp on the gri-gri, resulting in the full release of the device. Climber hit the ground at high speed with no major injuries and the belayer received severe rope burn on his left hand that put him out of action for months.

What I have learnt from from these occurences is to -

1. Keep your non-lock off hand well away from the top of the gri-gri when a fall potential exists
2. Lock off
3. Never,ever grab the gri-gri device
4. Lock off
5. Be attentive to the climber (in this case it was evident that a fall was on it way for a good 10 seconds)
6. Lock off
7. Think about the belay stance - is the belayer likely to be launched resulting in a longer fall potential for the climber
8. Lock off