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Chockstone Forum - Accidents & Injuries

Report Accidents and Injuries

Author
An excellent treatise arising out of accidents.

IdratherbeclimbingM9
4-Jul-2013
12:08:49 PM

Friends of YOSAR - CLIMBING SAFETY.

The YOSAR article is a really good, easy to read, form of feedback (imo), based on actual incidents, and well worth absorbing its message/s by experienced and inexperienced climbers alike.

Here is the introduction as an appetiser...
>
Most climbers do a good job coping with the hazards of their sport, yet more than 100 climbing accidents occur in the park every year. What factors contribute to them? What, if anything, can climbers do to avoid them? And just how dangerous is climbing, anyway?

>With these questions in mind, the National Park Service (NPS) has examined most of the serious accidents that occurred in the park during the years from 1970 through 1990. The conclusions provide interesting reading for those wishing to stay alive.

(snip)

>In case after case, ignorance, a casual attitude, and/or some form of distraction proved to be the most dangerous aspects of the sport.


It contains site specific stuff, but the lessons learnt are universal.







Different topic of sorts.
I found the above link* within one of the posts while reading a thread on UK Climbing titled Let's talk about accident/bereavement threads.
That thread raises some important issues in a sensible manner (so far), with a lot of overlap-relevance to how inmates deal with similar issues on this site.

The UKC thread discusses pro's and con's of internet feedback/speculation-debates/etc and although getting a bit lengthy, seems to contain most peoples points of view, so readers may not get much out of it unless as a rainy-day time-filler affair.


(* I seem to remember reading it a long time ago, but am glad I tripped over it again, as it was worth a re-read, and sharing).



Post edit;
Regarding avoiding climbing accidents, qurank has a good thread running at the moment too titled;
So, you want to go multi-pitching. Things you should know.

They are also running occasional training days in conjunction with it for those who feel the need and are lucky enough to be in warm Qld now...



shortman
4-Jul-2013
10:14:54 PM
Good read M9. That should be a sticky.






[Chockstone Moderator edit 5/7/13, regarding "That should be a sticky." A good idea, and I agree, so have just done it.]
technogeekery
5-Jul-2013
10:17:13 AM
It is an excellent read, thanks for posting.
Nick Clow
10-Jul-2013
1:35:13 PM
There is a dearth of data about climbing accidents/injuries (particularly about the rate of climbing accidents/injuries) and this is indeed a very interesting and informative read.

Obviously this report is specific to Yosemite, so one should bear in mind that there may be specific factors about climbing in Yosemite that are different from climbing in general.

From the report:
> The NPS keeps no statistics on how many climbers use the park, but 25,000 to 50,000 climber-days annually is a fair estimate. With this in mind, 2.5 deaths and a few serious injuries per year may seem a pretty low rate.

The report says elsewhere:
- that there are around 100 accidents per year;
- there are about 50 fractures per year.
(Also of interest is that it says that, aside from the 51 deaths over the 20 year period, there would have been 45 more deaths if it were not for climbers being rescued.)

Contrary to the highlighted statement above, my reaction is that (aside possibly from the death number) these are quite high rates!

Given their estimate of climbing days of 25,000 to 50,000 per year (which they admit is guesswork), let's take the low estimate and extrapolate that on every single day that you go climbing you have:
- a 1 in 250 chance of being in a climbing accident;
- a 1 in 500 chance of sustaining a fracture; and
- a 1 in 10,000 chance of being killed.

I have been climbing on 1,500 days in the last 15 years. In actuarial terms, using the above rates (and I know I wasn't wasn't climbing in Yosemite) this means I should have been in 6 climbing accidents and sustained 3 fractures.

shortman
10-Jul-2013
2:03:28 PM
Are you using Nick's acct Damo?
kieranl
4-Nov-2016
8:54:19 PM
Just came across this really interesting site :

http://www.stephabegg.com/home/projects/accidentstats

While the stats are for USA climbing, including mountaineering, one of the things that caught my eye was the pie-chart of Accidents by Experience. Guess what : people who have climbing accidents are equally distributed across the experience range.

That's not the same as saying that your experience level is not relevant to your chances of having an accident but it's still interesting.

phillipivan
4-Nov-2016
9:58:51 PM
My take away from that website is that as long as no one in the climbing party knows what month of the year it is, you're good to go.
Martym
5-Nov-2016
9:03:39 PM
On 4/07/2013 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:
>
> Friends
>of YOSAR - CLIMBING SAFETY.
>
>The YOSAR article is a really good, easy to read, form of feedback (imo),
>based on actual incidents, and well worth absorbing its message/s by experienced
>and inexperienced climbers alike.
Hi M9 - the link you've posted seems to redirect to the friends of yosar homepage; and I can't find the article in Google either (has the same URL)... lil help?
If you can access it, perhaps cut & paste a few more paragraphs in for those like me who can't read it?

Thanks.

IdratherbeclimbingM9
5-Nov-2016
9:33:24 PM
On 5/11/2016 Martym wrote:
>Hi M9 - the link you've posted seems to redirect to the friends of yosar homepage; and I can't find the article (snip)

Hmm. It appears that they've reformatted their website.
Try;
http://www.friendsofyosar.org/climbing

If that doesn't work, go to their Home page following section;
Rescues (from the top menu -bar)
Then on that page is a side-bar; Climbing.
Clicking on it takes you to; CLIMBING SAFETY - "Staying Alive" -by Ranger John Dill.

It's been a while, but that is the article from memory...
OozeDumbHopeless
6-Nov-2016
8:01:31 AM
On 10/07/2013 Nick Clow wrote:

>I have been climbing on 1,500 days in the last 15 years.

Divorced or does your wife climb?

There are 10 messages in this topic.

 

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