climber takes fall on video, top belay failure

youtube.com/watch?v=HDeyntv…

indiegogo.com/projects/mone…

"On Sunday The 14th April 2013 My Self and another man of the nam Sean were climbing a famous Multi Pitch climb in the blue mountains called Sweet Dreams it is a easy climb with choice of an easy or hard finish. I Have climbed this climb 3 times before and know the route very well Sean has also climbed the route before with myself. This time we decide to do the harder finish. Sean went first and then belayed me up afterwards so i was on a top rope so if i fell i shouldn't have fallen far no more than 1 metre. Feeling a bit more confident being on a top rope and not leading i made a bigger move than i normally would have and missed...
But the rope didn't go tight i thought thats it. Finally i stopped looked at my feet and screemed my left foot had snapped off and was dangling around on a bit of skin and the right was mangled beyond recognition.
I yelled to lower me down so i could connect to a bolt in the wall and get the idiot that just nearly killed me off the end of the rope."

more info here...

chockstone.org/Forum/Forum.…

Christ, that's pretty terrible. And his climbing partner ran off as soon as the ambulance showed up. Best wishes for a quick recovery.

He fell all the way down to where they started the pitch he was climbing... was the belayer just not paying attention or taking up slack for the entire time this guy was climbing that pitch? Was the rope caught in a way that the belayer couldn't feel slack? Could they even see one another? There aren't very many details on this yet that I've found.

Hope he makes a full recovery and keeps the foot. Lucky to have a doctor near by to splint it up. Not so lucky to have been dropped 30 meters while on TR. Yikes.

Curious what device was he belaying you with?

I'm curious if he was belaying with a reverso that was set up properly if this could have happened?

This is sad, I hope him all the best in his recovery! Heres a link to help him out.

ipledg.com/l/bankrupt

Spectacular. Even more so given how people document their catastrophes these days via their GoPro...

RobC2 wrote:Spectacular. Even more so given how people document their catastrophes these days via their GoPro...

Well, of all the GoPro videos I've seen, I prefer ones like this. This is as close to taking a 30 meter fall as I ever want to be.

I always test my station before I allow my follower to head up.

You have to be very safety conscious when doing multipitch, cause you're more likely to make a mistake when tired.

Just get in the habit of going through your ABC's(anchor, belay, climber) before committing to position transitions(climbing or belaying).

With regard to the cause of the accident I unofficially have heard the belayer had his device attached to the anchor, but not tightly, and when Daniel fell it got pulled out of reach and thus ran through. It would be useful if we knew what went on as a lesson for all.

Source: user vwills on Chockstone ... posted there on 10/25/2013. vwills assisted that day in the aftermath of the initial fall.

The rescuers said it was the weirdest set-up they had ever seen.

Source: HelmetCam captures 30m horror fall of climber in the Blue Mountains - but he lives to do the voiceover

Have a look at his tie in knot at 1:56. What is that ? Bowline with tail tucked in somehow ?

Syd wrote:Have a look at his tie in knot at 1:56. What is that ? Bowline with tail tucked in somehow ?

Umm. His knot did not fail. So irrelevant.

I just do a lot of bouldering for right now, but man....that's crazy. Hope that all heals up.

I see a lot of weird belay set ups......

How does one screw up something so simple as belaying up your partner???????

If it was ME who got dropped.... as soon as I could i'd be looking for revenge.

i just wanna see what his foot looks like. sounds gnar

good god, I'm headed down under for an extended surfing/ climbing trip for the next year.

This is a good reminder to really know your partner and their capabilities. It's one thing to trust somebody to pull rope through a TR belay setup that you've checked from the ground, it's another to trust them to take the lead, build a safe anchor (that you can't check) and belay you up safely. It always gives me the hebejebees to TR on an anchor I haven't seen. Let alone one built by somebody I haven't climbed with before. I think a single pitch crag day with a new partner is prudent before going up anything big.

F&^%! I feel your pain. I got dropped about 25ft bounced off a ledge and fell another 5 or so more before my belayer caught me. No gear popped. Ive been climbing with my buddy who dropped me for at least 10 years and he's never done that before. I damn near laid him out after that. Amazingly all I had was bruises and scrapes.

Speedy healing!

Perhaps the sustained force from Daniel falling quickly overcame the belayer's grip on the brake strand. By 'sustained' I mean the time between the rope starting to run and the time when the device's attachment to the anchor became taught.

And, yes, we all would like to be the belayer who instead instinctively endures what might be rope burns. Better of course to rig it properly in the first place.

Colin Brochard wrote:good god, I'm headed down under for an extended surfing/ climbing trip for the next year. This is a good reminder to really know your partner and their capabilities. It's one thing to trust somebody to pull rope through a TR belay setup that you've checked from the ground, it's another to trust them to take the lead, build a safe anchor (that you can't check) and belay you up safely. It always gives me the hebejebees to TR on an anchor I haven't seen. Let alone one built by somebody I haven't climbed with before. I think a single pitch crag day with a new partner is prudent before going up anything big.

my understanding is that they had done a day of climbing prior and this was their second day climbing together

remember that ...

- just because they can do single pitch cragging doesnt mean they know how to do multi

- its hard to observe their "safety" when yr climbing yourself

- theres been incidents where people have had partners theyve climbed with prior and who have had many years experience screw up

all it takes is a moment of inattention ...

what can you do?

- dont climb with people who dont take basic safety seriously (and i dont mean those so scared of their own shadow that they think everything from not have double belay loops, using deadly dyneemas, using two opposed anchor draws, etc will kill em)

- dont climb with people who dont pay attention or are easily distracted

- dont climb with people who dont have and PRACTICE the basic skills ... its useless to say you know how to set up a top belay if its not something you practice and do in real life over and over again

a large part of climbing accidents are from belay/lowering errors ... there are many a times i prefer solo setups over an unknown or untrusted climbing partner ...

;)

Greg D wrote: Umm. His knot did not fail. So irrelevant.

What the hell are you talking about ? No claim has been made anywhere of a knot failing.