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St Peters Gym accident 3-Feb-2017 At 12:18:35 AM patto

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Respect for contributing to this thread and your own critique of your incident. We are all human and make mistakes. Many of us never own up to them.....

Plenty of comments could be made but I'll refrain from most:

On 2/02/2017 TheBelayer wrote:
>Grip the brake rope in your hand, it's not enough to have it resting in
>your hand.

This should be belay 101. Your partners life is in your hand. Literally. Sure the other aspects played a part but if the belayer is GRIPPING the rope appropriately then most of those points are moot.

On 2/02/2017 TheBelayer wrote:
>8-There is one detail that I'm still not clear on. At some stage I gripped
>the brake rope tight, my hand was correctly positioned below the ATC, despite
>getting rope burn I was not able to arrest the fall. I didn't get lifted
>off the ground despite the climber being heavier than me indicating there
>was not much force on me.

Physics here. Dynamic friction is less than static friction so a tight grip once it is moving is significantly less effective than a tight initial grip on the rope. Rope burn can occur even with a very light force once the rope picks up speed, just basic physics... Once a rope starts moving, stopping it is not at all easy and attempting so can readily lead to significant burns and skin loss.