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Omiros, 7b fall 20-Jun-2015 At 4:09:24 PM Dave_S

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On 20/06/2015 Sabu wrote:
>The wrong person was wearing the helmet in this instance. Seriously, this
>guy is lucky he didn't sustain a head injury from that fall.

Nonsense. Helmets are designed to prevent injury from falling rocks, not injury to a falling climber, so it is far more important for the belayer to be wearing one. Otherwise, a climber could dislodge a rock and hit the belayer with it, potentially resulting in two deaths.

As for this specific incident, the problem was that the climber allowed the rope to get outside his leg, resulting in it getting caught in the rope during the fall. Wearing a helmet wouldn't have prevented that, and if the climber had landed on his head in this fall, even if he was wearing a helmet, he would have almost certainly suffered brain injury, a broken neck, or death. A climber who didn't let their feet get wrapped in the rope would have suffered a broken ankle at absolute worst. Helmets are not a panacea for bad technique.