Carabiner impalement in gym

Figured this would be worth sharing. The incident occurred on 12/20/2014, and involved what appeared to be fairly experienced climbers. Gyms can be dangerous, ya'lls!

Short version:

• A climber was impaled by a permadraw, and fully suspended by his achilles tendon.
• At one point, ALL of his body weight was held by his tendon alone.
• He was eventually freed by unweighting his tendon and removing the draw from the bolt.

Longer version:

• A leader was on a route pulling a somewhat boxy overhang, and fell with his feet just above his last draw.
• It is unclear about what exactly happened, but it appears that he managed to backstep the belayer's end of the rope or the quickdraw itself prior to or during his fall (It is also possible that he somehow kicked the draw on his way down).
• During the fall, take,or lower, his ankle was pulled into the draw due to his backstep. The biner gate was pressed against his achilles, which allowed the biner to open and the nose pressed against and penetrated his ankle, between his fibula (moslt likely) and achilles tendon.
• He was fully inverted and suspended from the tendon for a few minutes while staff and other climbers worked to access and release him.
• The climber was eventually released after being anchored into a higher bolt and adjacent toprope, allowing all of his weight to be taken off of the tendon/carabiner. This allowed a staff member to remove the permadraw from the bolt. The climber was then released from his anchor point and lowered on the toprope that he had been attached to during the rescue.
• After being lowered, the carabiner simply fell out of the wound. He was evaluated and removed by EMTs. He never lost consciousness, and seemed to manage the shock very well.

Total troll.

No trolling here. Dead serious. Watched the whole thing go down from start to finish. The bogus username is because I'm a regular at the gym, and I'd rather go unidentified.

top rope is the only way to go bro

Which gym? You can identify it without compromising your "anonymity."

Alias McAlias wrote: A leader was on a route ... It is unclear about what exactly happened, but it appears that he managed to backstep the belayer's end of the rope...

What is the "belayer's end of the rope"? I vote for a troll.

Edited to add new info due to new poster limits on MP:

Here's the takeaway:

• Freak accidents can occur with biners, rare as they may be. They're much more likely on longer slings or in situations where the biners are hanging free on overhangs or roofs, as opposed to lying flat on vertical or slabby terrain.
• All frequent climbers (gym climbers and gym staff, as well) should all learn basic rescue or response technique. The rescue would have been much faster and more graceful if it were better coordinated.

For all the folks clamoring for photos:

You ought to be ashamed. The accident was serious, and the victim was in excruciating pain the entire time. He may have a very difficult, and costly, recovery ahead of him. I understand some of the skepticism about the account, given this website's proud history of trolling. I do not understand the desire to see pictures of the victim or anyone else involved released without their consent.

What if it was you who was injured. How about your partner, spouse, child, etc?
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doligo wrote: What is the "belayer's end of the rope"? I vote for a troll.

When he fell, his right foot hooked behind and was wrapped up in the rope below the quickdraw -- not the rope between his knot and the biner, as would happen in a typical backstep. He may have swung into this position as he fell, or perhaps he was directly backstepping the permadraw, which was on a longer cable.

Whole thing went down, honest to god, in a major East Coast facility. Gnarliest thing I have ever seen while climbing, in the gym or otherwise. There were plenty of witnesses. Someone is bound to verify the account eventually.

Also, this apparently isn't the first time something like this has happened:

mountainproject.com/v/10579…

This also happened at a gym I used to work at maybe 5 or 6 years ago. Exact same scenario and outcome. I believe that during the fall, the climber somehow managed to kick one of the permadraws and it latched onto his achilles tendon. Isn't too far fetched - very similar to how climbers rodeo clip first bolts.

Personally, I have had a permadraw in the gym latch onto the loop on the back of one of my shoes while climbing. Thankfully I was in a stable enough position to reach down and unclip it. Not the same scenario, but weird things happen!

What gym ??

without photos, useless this thread is

jk, but would be better with photos. I'm sure someone grabbed their iphone to snap shots

Bill Kirby wrote:What gym ??

its a secret Bill c'mon

Miike wrote: its a secret Bill c'mon

Not anymore.. This accident really happened at Earth Treks Rockville yesterday.

Obviously not the gym's fault, and in fact, they worked to free him. Could have happened outside on regular draws.

A similar accident occured in Eldo a few years back. I witnessed this from the trail below, and could not believe my eyes when he got down to the ground.

Check this out!

mountainproject.com/v/accid…

Same thing happened at Paradise Forks a while back.

Am I reading this right, that he either fell, took or lowered until the carabiner gate opened against his leg and hooked him? And after ALL of his body weight was hanging on this, basically like a fish being hooked, it just "fell out?"
And no one was wearing a Go-Pro to capture this?

The incident Alias McAlias is describing allegedly happened at Earth Treks in Rockville MD.

Everything he said in the above thread is supported by rumors flying around the three gyms. I wasn't there, but I have heard from MANY people now pretty much exactly what Alias described. Scary stuff.

Also, anyone with two working brain cells can ID me from my username.

Definitely not a troll! The OP's account is spot on, according to what I saw. At first, everyone thought his ankle was simply wrapped up in the rope, or that his shoe pull-loop was caught on the draw.

However, the poor guy was indeed impaled by the carabiner. He hung entirely from his tendon for over five minutes while gym staff worked to take the weight off of his achilles and remove the quickdraw from the wall. He was clearly, and understandably, in complete agony during the entire ordeal.

The rescue was very difficult due to the victim's position vis-a-vis adjacent topropes. Accessing him from the adjacent lines risked pulling him away from the draw, putting extra strain on his tendon. He is extremely lucky that the fuc*er held, because if it broke, he would have had an additional head-first fall onto the slab below the bulge he was pulling.

There were many phones out taking video and photos of the whole ordeal. Hopefully none of them will make it to this forum in name of good taste, unless the victim himself chooses to do so.

On a much lighter note, there was a birthday party taking place on the opposite side of the wall during the entire ordeal.

Gym accident man it looked worse in person

The person involved in this accident is a good friend of mine and it really happened. He's going to be fine.

hi.
I am the climber to whom this happened. It took place at the Earth Treks gym in Rockville and, as best I can reconstruct, happened exactly as described in the OP.
When I was first upended the pain was not severe. I communicated with my belayer and told him I was alright. The rope was wrapped in a loop around the front of my shoe, right at the fixed quickdraw, and it was hard to see what exactly was going on. While the weight was on the rope it was uncomfortable but not very painful. I worked to untangle it. At some point, both through my own efforts and those of an ET staff member who had come up to help, we got the rope off my shoe without realizing that this transferred all of the weight to the biner hooked in my heel (right in front of the Achilles tendon). In fact, I am not sure I was even AWARE that my heel had been impaled by the biner until this point. All of a sudden, however, all of the weight was on this biner and the the pain became truly excruciating. Three people came up to help and, after a few minutes, they managed to (a) unscrew the bolt from the wall, and (b) transfer my weight onto another anchor. I was lowered to the ground and, although the wound was quite grissly, felt ok. The pain was back to a very manageable level. And, just as described in the original OP, the biner (now unweighted) simply fell out of the wound.
I was taken to the ER. They established that the Achilles tendon was not torn--what I had was essentially a nasty flesh wound. I got 10 stitches and some pain medication. I was very lucky. It should all heal fine.
I want to thank the three people who came up to help. It was a freak situation and I am not surprised that it took everyone, including me, a few minutes to figure out what was going on and how to handle it.