It was a bad morning. Late for work, tube rammed, the boss noticed and a perpetual haze squatted my mind. By 11:00 I needed out, slung my gym bag over my shoulder and by 11:10 I was clipping into the auto-belay at The Reebok Sports Centre in Canary Wharf. Up down, up down, same old warm-up. Taking a break I figured something harder might shake things up.

They don't change the routes much. There was one I'd done a while back, steadily overhanging crimpy and awkward. So it proved again. I fumbled through the early moves, out of sequence, matching unnecessarily and then lunging way out right when I could have used an intermediate hold. I was uninspired, tired, but had been strong in recent weeks so I figured this would be a good test of resolve. I rocked over and almost popped off, past two awkward crimps to a tenuous undercling and I was shaking out when I should be pushing on. Quit, my will-power suggested, but I was almost at the top: a reach out to two small crimps then a rock-over to a side-pull and relief.

There is always a split second of freedom before the mechanism arrests your fall, it didn't take me long to register that this had elapsed. I was heading south, fast. There was no attempt to correct my fall. Just one conscious thought, 'Oh dear.'

My first words: 'I'm such a loser.'

The small crowd assembled at the crash-site tried to convince me otherwise.

NO REALLY! I'm such a loser! What a loser. What a loser. What an idiot. What a loser. Then I got lots of morphine.

In hospital they broke it down. I'd fallen 30ft (I knew). Right wrist: fractured dislocated (that would explain the S shape). Right ankle: fractured dislocated (further unusual positioning). Pelvis: fractured (it hurt). Eight days, a couple of operations later and I'm home. My options are limited; one of them was to write this account.

The more astute observer will no doubt point out Rule #1: Always clip in to the auto-belay before climbing. Indeed, my experience owes everything to absentmindedness. They also say you don't learn anything from other people's mistakes and no doubt many of you will find it hard to imagine the same critical oversight. There's no point bashing the auto-belay either. It's not my favourite but it allows those who want to climb alone. It also provides a comfortable 'in' to the world of 'extreme' sport.

So, after infusing a virtually risk-free activity with death potential, what do I possibly have to impart? Well, I consider myself very lucky which is an effervescent tonic. Physically the injuries could have been worse; I have run through many what-if scenarios. Philosophically it poses the greater challenge. Having provided a classic example of how not to do it, don't do it again seems the cleanest solution, but with little else do I find myself questioning the state of mind culpable for such a horrible blunder.

Living in Central London with only the odd weekend in the Peak as plastic relief my passion for climbing had slowly corrupted into routine; the mechanical nature of climbing gyms emphasising opening hours, money, goals, competition. Stripped of nature, of its soul, climbing had become as much a part of my daily grind as my daily grind. And as I had slowly anaesthetised myself to a corporate lifestyle so too was I increasingly an automaton to my favourite sport.

Ideally, life in its myriad forms should leave an indelible impression on us each and every day. To those who have achieved this I salute you. I hadn't. By allowing a repetitive series of predictable sanitised events to cycle ad infinitum I had conditioned myself into accepting a status quo far removed from the ideal. Social regimentation had compartmentalised my existence. I just had to show up Monday to Sunday and everything would pass by in an orderly fashion. And so even my climbing, once the great freshener, had lost its lustre and it's taken a 30ft fall to wake me up.