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A Thumb Pointing South 24-Dec-2004 At 12:55:16 PM oweng

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A spur of the moment descision to have a quick after work boulder backfired on me yesterday.

After rocking up to the beachside boulders at Taroona in Hobart, and having a chat to a guy who was bouldering there as well, I headed through a gap in the main boulderfield to do a problem called 'salty'. It starts of a wave washed platform, and heads up 45 degree overhanging rock on little slopers (that get a bit covered in salt spray, hense the name).

Not having a bouldering mat, I chucked a little rock on the platform to enable me to reach the starting hold from the sit down start, pulled up and reached up and right to the second hold. It was indeed slippery and slopy.

I realised it was a bit dank for me to pull on, and prepared myself to dismount, all of a sudden I was falling.

I wasnt overly concerned, as my butt wouldnt have been more that 1 metres of the ground, however being aware that I had the 'cheat stone' beneath me, and not wanting to land on it with my back, I through my legs and ams back so that I landed on both feet and both hands, facing up, with my bum and back still off the ground so as to be clear of the rock.

Good in theory, but in practice I found that I ended up lying uncomfortably on my back sprawled across the rock, aware that something felt 'not quite right' with my left hand.

A quick shocked inspection showed that the thumb was bent upwards at a very un-natural angle, with the second knuckle from the end either broken or dislocated.

What had happened was that there was a flared crack in the wave platform, that my hand had landed on palm down. The crack was wide enough for my fingers to go into, but the thumb remained on the outside whilst most of my bodyweight pushed the arm down.

Shocked, but not yet in too much pain, I gathered my stuff and got Andrew (who I had met 15 minutes before) to drive me to hospital.

A canister of nitrus oxide, and a shot in the arm of something druggie later, the re-setting of the thumb (which took the doctor two big heaves to acheive) only felt partialy agonising.

The x-rays show no breaks, so its a case of a big dislocation, and the associated ligament damage. Looks like 2 or 3 months of climbing.

Still, its the first injury ive had from a fall climbing (in 7 or 8years), so I cant complain. Still its somewhat ironic that it happened in a fall of about 1.0metres.

What have I learnt?

- I should have bought a bouldering mat, ill definatly shell out the $$$ for one now!
- Dont be complacent becasue youve done a route/problem before, it can still trip you up.
- Nitrus Oxide is excellent.

Well no climbing for me over the Chrissy break, looks like ill get to watch a bit of cricket on the tellie though!