Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Accidents & Injuries

Report Accidents and Injuries

Topic Date User

Trapped in Squeeze Test for hours [The Age] 23-Apr-2014 At 10:37:21 PM simey

Message

There are a bunch of issues stemming from this saga that bother me...

Firstly, a person getting stuck in the Squeeze Test with friends nearby isn't exactly a death-defying situation. The stuck person might be feeling anxious but that's about it. It is a minor in comparison to someone falling off a climb and suffering broken limbs, head injuries, having blood squirting out of them, going into shock, not to mention them often being stuck in an inaccessible spot.

There were hundreds of climbers camped at Arapiles that night. I am amazed that rescue services were called. I am amazed that no one was able to work out a solution to this problem.

The last time someone was stuck in the Squeeze Test was a few years ago. Gareth Llewellin and myself wandered into the situation just on dark and were already witnessing a similar hullabaloo with emergency services until Gareth simply climbed above the stuck kid, got a sling around him (or he might have even just reached down and grabbed him) and then maneuvered him out of his predicament. It didn't seem like rocket science.

I am a bit curious as to why none of the climbers in the vicinity were able to achieve this earlier. And once rescue services were called, I am curious as to why it took them so long to do exactly the same thing.

As for people getting stuck in there again. Well I would much rather see people having epics on the Squeeze Test and learning from it, instead of making bad calls on the cliff and plunging into the deck.