Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Accidents & Injuries

Report Accidents and Injuries

Topic Date User

Policeman falls at Arapiles 5-Nov-2003 At 8:01:01 PM fruityarse

Message

Hi all,

In a bit of mild shock to read of this - I called a good friend to check it was not him and sadly it turned out to be him. I just spoke to him in hospital, here's some more info:

* he fell on the second pitch of Muldoon. He had just placed an RP and was moving onto to place his next pro and fell, pulling his last piece of pro.

* as he fell, there was some slack in the rope and as Keiran said, the rope was snagged and TOTALLY CUT. According to him, he said that his belayer did not have time to realise what happened as it happened so quickly.

* he was woken on the ground by one of the others in the group, and hard nut that he is stood up and said "I'm OK", after which he fell to the ground as the nature and shock of the injuries took over. He was taken out and away on stretcher.

* poor old belayer had to be rescued, though I did not get the full details off him about the belayer's mini-epic. Needless to say, part of the rope was on the ground still attached to the other climber!

* his injuries - broken left ankle, severe gash on right foot, severe gashes on right side of face that need more surgery (he was never that good looking anyway). Basically, his whole right side took a severe battering.

They estimated he fell 39 metres. As you all no doubt agree, he is incredibly lucky to be alive. He attributes this partly to being a trained parachutist as he managed to use a landing technique which we would normally use when landing a parachute. We were taught this many years ago and he credits that as helping him make it out in one piece - albeit somewhat battered! He has about 5-6 years climbing experience. He's a safe climber, having been taught to climb by the army where we are hammered with more safety awareness than is believable.

Rope was an 11mm Edelrid, according to him in good condition. However, when snagged like it was, combined with the force of his falling 100kg (give or take a kg) then I doubt whether any rope would have held that.

He will spend about another week in hospital before he's out, bit longer though before he's out on the rocks again. He's a tough nut and he'll be back.

Hope that helps a little.

Cheers,

Bill