UKC

I thought I’d share my near miss/accident story in the spirit of vicarious learning. Also for something to do while everyone else is out climbing!

My partner was cleaning a 2 bolt anchor (without chain) having just sent his sport project. He shouts ‘take’ but then realises that he has mistakenly only threaded one bolt. I give slack and eventually he asks me to take once again. I take in, idly noting that there was an unusually large amount of slack in the system as I did so. Once I could feel the rope become taut I leaned back (I’m a bit lighter than him so use my position to counter his weight) and shouted ‘got you’, waiting for him to tell me he was coming off his sling. I sat with my weight on the rope for around 5 seconds. 

Suddenly a lot more slack came into the system from above, resulting in me falling straight backwards whilst in my braced ‘standing’ posture, to land around a metre lower, straight onto a large pointed rock which hit my lower back and stopped my fall. There was still a few armfuls of slack to take in.

It would appear that in re-threading, a large bight of rope had somehow become trapped in with his sling. This was released as he prepared to come back onto the rope.

Thankfully it’s just tissue damage but I’m definitely out of climbing for a few weeks. I’m trying to manage my frustration at such an unnecessary accident! We have done over 1000 routes together, 600 or so single and multi pitch sport; reading each other’s actions at anchors had become very intuitive and familiar, although honestly I probably clean 90% as he generally leads first. 

I thought I’d share just as something to think about in the ‘safe’ world of sport climbing. I’m not entirely sure yet how we’ll change things in the future. Perhaps ‘that’s me’ needs to be communicated more clearly. Any thoughts are welcome! 

Also.. I can now fully attest to the competence and kindness of the Geyikbayiri mountain rescue volunteers (formed mostly of the camp owners) who did an amazing stretcher rescue. Such a good bunch of guys. 

Ouch, sounds like a really annoying and stupid accident, hope you mend quickly!

Cheers

Toby

It appears to me that complacency was the cause. Despite, or perhaps because of, having over 1000 sports routes under your belts your partner managed to cock up three times: first by threading only one bolt, then by allowing a bight of rope to get trapped, and finally by not noticing.  Perhaps since you do most of the cleaning he's not at slick at it as he thinks he is.

How to change things? Practice your threading routines, and remember to stay focussed when doing it for real.

Not a good outcome for you, but it might have been a lot worse.  Hope you recover soon.

Not sure the OP asked for anyone's advice or opinion on the matter?  Vicarious learning suggests we learn from their incident, not them from our replies...

She wondered what to change to avoid it happening again.  And surely posting on a forum invites comment? 

Err, she literally posted "Any thoughts are welcome!".

'Any thoughts are welcome!' would suggest that the OP does want comment

Ouch.

Reminder that sometimes, as a belayer, it's worth being tied into something, especially if the ground isn't flat.

I was very glad of that once, when my leader fell, ripped his only gear out (a badly placed nut) and nearly took both of us down the side of a nasty hill.

When I opened the thread and started reading I wasn't expecting it to be the person on the ground that got hurt!

Thanks for sharing your experience. It's always worthwhile to get a reminder how a couple of otherwise innocuous things can add up to going wrong.

All the best, and hope you get back on it soon.

Right you are. Missed that bit. My bad.

Might be worth putting this up on the BMC accident/near miss database. Useful information for everyone to read.

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/modules/incident-reporting/ 

I'm not piling in as others have already replied to what you said about the OP asking for advice. But I would say that it's difficult to learn from incidents without at least a little exchange of ideas on what the lessons may be, if any. Of course we could all keep quiet and come to our own conclusions, but that isn't going to be nearly as effective. 

Glad you're not too badly hurt. One thing I've got into the habit of, based on climbing at busy places with rocky/uneven crag bases, is to take in slack by jumping up instead of leaning back. This reduces the chance that a change of weight on the rope (or the sudden appearance of slack) sends me tumbling backwards. It's not as comfortable to hold someone like this but it feels safer and more stable, especially where there's a weight difference. Obviously the other thing that would have helped is your partner checking the belay area was clear, rope running where it should be etc, before telling you to take him but I guess he'll already know this and will probably be feeling a bit guilty about it.

Thanks for everyone’s thoughts.

Anchoring myself to a fixed point would have prevented this for sure, but I’m not sure this is practical on an average sport belay spot. it’s certainly something I’d consider doing if I could now though and definitely on very steep ground.

A friend suggested that a more solid stance might have helped, which is a good point. Perhaps leaning back too trustingly is unwise? I def still would have fallen but perhaps not so much like a domino.

I will submit to BMC, thanks for supplying the link.

Yes for sure jumping up to take mid route is a habit. It prevents falling backwards as you say when the climber moves unexpectedly as you move back to standing/straighten your legs with slack.
 

When you’re expecting to lower it doesn’t really work the same though- you want a more stable position to lower for route cleaning. If you jump up you’ll just be lowered once you start giving rope. Thinking about it I’m pretty sure I did have one leg slightly behind me. It was a good few metres of slack just as I was expecting to lower so slightly different. Hmmm. 
 

Thanks for your thoughts, they help to think about how to prevent it happening again.

That sounds like a rubbish way to injure yourself; hope you're relatively okay and back climbing quickly.

I guess overall you're lucky that he didn't start lowering as you fell otherwise it could have turned even nastier. I'm guessing he was confused hearing ‘got you’ and looking at the slack thinking, well you clearly haven't.

I'm the heavier one when I typically climb so it's not something I've put much thought into. I think the advice above about jumping is the only tangible thing you could do differently.

I'd say the real change needs to happen with your partner where he needs to check everything more thoroughly, but then it's easy to make mistakes. I guess it's a bit like telling someone, don't make mistakes. Not very helpful I know.

Mitigate your risk by jumping and avoid leaning when you can.

Maybe I'm not understanding the scenario, but is this a single pitch, you belaying at the bottom, him threading through at the top? If so, do you need to hold the rope that tight such that you're leaning back? If you're close to the route the the entire load is upwards all you need to do is remove some of the stretch to give your partner some confidence that you've got him. Again, I'm the heavier one, so may be missing somehting and not 100% I've understood the sneria correctly.

Hope you feel better soon!

I've almost done similar things... I think you're right that somehow not leaning your weight on the rope is key here.

Hope you're able to enjoy the rest of your holiday in a relaxing manner.

Checking what's behind /underneath you is also a good belaying practice generally ie trip hazards, drops etc Probably something that gets less attention in sport climbing but essential when your judging where to run/jump if a fall needs reducing in length !   

Thanks for that, and I hope you are back on the rock soon. I'd never thought about that as a possibility. I bet I often lean back a little to "take" under various scenarios, spot or trad, or lowering. If something pings - lowest piece, one bolt on the lower off, a mid piece piece of at an angle - I could easily fall backwards/trip.

Not sure one could guarantee all seconds however inexperienced would still hold the brake strand as their arse/back/head piles into the scree. 

Guess I need to ensure I'm more upright, or have a foot behind me.

Thanks again, and all the best.

Another reason to use a grigri or similar, especially when sport-climbing.  Wrinklies who won't change their ways are a danger to themselves and others.

Well, I'm not commenting on Wrinkles, but yes, assisted devices might well help in any situation where the belayer might be thrown against hard surfaces.

It seems to be human nature that familiar actions become automatic and we don't give them our full attention. That's when mistakes happen. It's why we have buddy-checks, but you can't buddy-check each other when you're a pitch apart, so you have to remember to check yourself. That requires self-discipline, something else humans often aren't very good at.  It often takes an incident such as this to remind us to pay more attention. The difficult bit is remembering to do it without such a prompt.

I think the biggest dangers I see are belayers who don't pay attention or know what they are doing. Indoor Sport Climbing in the UK in particular seems to me to have significantly more belayers not paying proper attention and/or belaying inappropriately than on trad. I suspect a lot of this is down to the higher proportion of inexperienced climbers and the psychology of low perceived risk causing participants to be more likely to not focus properly. I see no apparent correlation with wrinkliness/ belay device used and apparent risk (although I'd agree a grigri should be safer if used properly with good belay technique). 

https://zenandtheartofclimbing.com/lead-belaying-grigri/