Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Accidents & Injuries

Report Accidents and Injuries

Topic Date User

Rescued in Blue Mountains May 31, the analysis 25-Jun-2015 At 7:19:34 AM dhunchak

Message

I started routinely using an autoblock back up for abseiling after reading a coroners report which found a major contributing factor in the death being the "failure to employ any of a wide variety of abseiling backup systems in common usage" or something similar. I often find it useful to sort out issues on decent (tangled ropes etc) but I seemed to manage all that before so it's obviously not essential. Just thought I'd mention that report because as everyone knows abseiling is dangerous and experienced people f--- it up all the time.

I also thought it would be worth mentioning that I've had prusiks fail on me twice, once due to inappropriate material and once due to mismatched diameters. both times I had a backup in place and so I lived. I second the previous comment that a pruisk abseil system is best thought of as a brake rather than a fail safe backup. If you're not a numpty like me, you probably won't have your knots fail on you though.