Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Accidents & Injuries

Report Accidents and Injuries

Author

Trapped in Squeeze Test for hours [The Age]

dan_b

11-Apr-2021
12:42:49 PM

On 10-Apr-2021 E. Wells wrote:
>. Would be interesting to know what can be done apart from relaxing and
>lubing, and how many people that requires. I really dont know why people
>go in there and expect to not get stuck.

Yeah when I go climbing I like to go climbing.

kieranl

12-Apr-2021
8:27:09 PM

They were rescued fairly quickly the other night.
People get stuck in different positions depending on how far through they are when their body drops down. Some lift out fairly easily but others have needed serious medical attention to manage pain/shock/cold etc.
ARG now has a special pole just for squeeze test extractions.
And yes, when the button is pressed everyone turns up. Funnily enough it's a life-threatening emergency rather than a bit of a joke.

dalai

12-Apr-2021
8:58:27 PM

Appreciate you guys going out to rescue.

Like dan_b I don't understand the attraction and have never considered trying... If I want to go through tight squeezes I'd try caving!


IdratherbeclimbingM9

14-Apr-2021
6:18:58 PM

On 12-Apr-2021 dalai wrote:
>Appreciate you guys going out to rescue.
>
>Like dan_b I don't understand the attraction and have never considered
>trying... If I want to go through tight squeezes I'd try caving!

+1 on the appreciation of rescuers attending incidents.

Caving... hmm; have done a bit of that...
In early days I considered squeezes a challenge and interestingly with experience over time I became better at them. In my opinion experience includes mastering the relaxation required to truly push ones limits in those situations. Essentially a mental exercise more so than just a physical grunt.

Once the dry squeezes became passe then I progressed to wet ones, ie negotiating syphons in the hope that an air-pocket would present itself to enable continuation... ~> a true adventure due to having an uncertain outcome, and the mind control involved is enormous, akin to my sketchiest leads on solo aid at my highest limit of ability...

In PNG I advanced our knowledge of a couple of unexplored cave systems using this technique, but didn't consider it at the time as hard core as full-on cave-diving!
One of those systems was at Mainamo in Chimbu Province PNG Highlands, and I connected one system to another. In the process I found the first human to have negotiated the passage that I explored... just bones! ... and probably the remains of someone disposed of after tribal fighting, down the sinkhole that I connected to.

It was a significant 'lead' that I established (in climbing terms equivalency), and involved syphoning several times in succession, with the squeezes involved constricting me to removing my helmet to fit through the passage. Air pockets consisted of a max of a half inch air space above water to ceiling that my sideways inclined head was able to suck oxygen through the corner of my mouth within, but not too much, as that would expand my chest too much and cause me to become jammed floor to ceiling in the syphons.

Fortunately at the time that I encountered a true challenge soon after while doing this, the passage ceiling height opened up, and the challenge then became negotiating a squeeze waterfall double step. Envisage if you will lying on the floor at the base of a set of stairs with a foot of space above them a third filled with water pouring down, and trying to worm your way up them, but your body naturally bends forward at ones waist, so the second step involves rolling over... but ones hips jam ceiling to floor in the process, ... so a contortionist full horizontal pivot is required before the roll-over can be accomplished in a feet first manner - kind of a corkscrew manoeuvre.

A squeeze test at Arapiles?
~> Pfft lightweight from the photos I've seen of it!
:-)

climberman

14-Apr-2021
7:34:54 PM

That sounds truly truly horrible.

dalai

14-Apr-2021
10:16:25 PM

On 14-Apr-2021 climberman wrote:
>That sounds truly truly horrible.

Yep. Not selling it M9!


Miguel75

19-Apr-2021
2:51:45 AM

Holy cow Rod, the level of self control/mastery required to push yourself in caving situations like you’ve described absolutely blows my mind.

If I had a hat on, I’d doff it to you:)


gordoste

20-Apr-2021
11:22:30 AM

That's cray-cray. I always knew aid climbers had something wrong with them, this just proves it.


Duang Daunk

21-Apr-2021
10:06:25 AM

Good one bro M9. I like the fact of your pushing the adventure spirit to the point of being the first to ever visit that ground, and probably being the only person to have laid eyes on the sights you saw.

It’s weird but I see overlap with your achievement and the same style of effort that goes into putting up a new mountaineering route, or even at the other end of the scale the same perseverance in successfully putting up the single hardest bouldering move ever at the limit of one’s ability, and what’s more; all without bolting these things into submission to take away the challenge for others or simply to get five minutes of fame in an online guidebook, or newspaper for that matter!

capt_planit

21-Apr-2021
10:33:21 AM

M9 with excellent content. Human remains common...hmm...wonder why?

There are 110 messages in this topic.