Injury Accident at Red Slab, Rock Canyon

Jun - My thought about the most likely cause was similar to yours. Maybe a blanket statement would be that mis-communication was involved. The "pushed two bights through rap device but only clipped one through carabiner" explanation is in my opinion less likely although certainly possible of course.

Wishing her a speedy recovery, always sad to hear about something like this happening and even more poignant with the photo.

Thanks Perin for your time & clarifications

Well, I guess this will be a recurring column:

Today about 5:30pm my partner and I were preparing to descend from the base of Ed and Terry Wall when we heard the yells of someone falling below us. I said something like, "Oh for crying out loud! That's the second time I've been up here when someone has fallen."

We dropped our gear and starting hurrying down to the top of the Red Slab below us. When we got to the edge we could see someone standing and we asked if someone had fallen. The young man said, "Yes," and asked if we would come and help. My partner called 911 as I started climbing down.

I got to the base and found the victim sitting upright at the base of the slab holding his arm. He had what appeared to be a broken left wrist or forearm, some contusions and abrasions, and a deep laceration on the inside of his right wrist. He was lucid.

I had him lie down, propped up his feet, and checked him for more serious injuries. To make a long story short, Provo Rescue showed up a short time later, he was given an IV and pain medication, strapped to a backboard, and I helped carry him down to the waiting ambulance while my partner manned the litter belay.

Afterward we retrieved his rope and draws from the route he'd been on and some volunteer S&R guys took his gear to him at the hospital.

What appears to have happened is the following: A relatively new and inexperience climber started up Mr. Cornflakes with six draws, belayed by an inexperienced belayer. You'll note, perhaps, that the route is an eight bolt climb. The climber skipped the fifth bolt, clipped the sixth, probably skipped the seventh bolt and was clipping the last bolt (according to the belayer) when he fell.

His belayer, using an ATC with a Petzl 9.8mm rope, failed to stop the climber's fall immediately and the climber tumbled down the wall until the belayer managed to stop the climber before the climber decked. The belayer ended up with apparent second degree burns on his left hand.

When we reached the fallen climber there was a single, banged up draw next to him and no draws on his harness. I retrieved five draws from the climb, without a draw being present on the fifth bolt. The climber fell on the sixth bolt.

The climber didn't deck; there are small ledges and protrusions on the not-vertical Red Slab. I imagine he hit his arm on something on the way down. He didn't hit his head. All in all, fairly lucky.

And yes, I probably should start posting a sign on Red Slab when I'm above on Ed and Terry :-)

I'm really glad these climbers didn't get hurt worse. They seemed like good young guys out to have a good time. Something like this happens so fast! They said it was their first time climbing outside after spending the winter climbing indoors.

Even though Perin and I heard the screaming climber, were the closest to this accident, and first on the scene, it's still hard to tell exactly what happened without having actually witnessing it. But Perin described well what we did observe. In addition, since we only found six draws, one of those on the ground scraped up and five others still clipped on the climb, we didn't see any gear for the leader to clip into the anchors. ??? And yes he's lucky he didn't hit his head in the fall as neither climber had a helmet (helmets may be another topic, but besides a head injury in a fall, I've seen some close calls with rocks coming from the Ed & Terry area down onto Red Slab).

The belayer was obviously in pain with bad rope burns in his non-brake (left) hand. He said that his brake-hand didn't slip at all and it wasn't rope-burned. Somehow the leader took a long fall and the belayer caught him before he decked. I don't know how the belayer stopped the leader AND got rope burns only on his non-brake hand.

I will say that Provo Fire & Rescue was quick to respond and did a great job. The lead climber was in a lot of pain trying not to move his apparent broken arm. They treated what they could on the spot and six guys safely carried him down the steep slope to a waiting ambulance.

BTW, before this all happened, Perin had a really nice lead on

. =)

I remember that the climber had some cord and a biner or two clipped to his harness. So he did have a little extra gear on him for the top.

I don't remember seeing any more quickdraws, however.

Yeah, I was up on Superbowl Wall when we heard blood curdling screams coming from the other side of the canyon. I was racking up and my parter said something about a guy on Red Slab being upside down. Here's a picture I took of the rescue in action:

Note the 9ish cop cars... Tax dollars at work, eh? I blew up the portion of the image with people (Perrin and company) carrying the litter down.

-Tristan

"so... what if i don't have enough draws for the route?"

"don't worry... your faith in god will keep you safe."

"um.. what if my faith waivers?"

"no worries then, either... SAR requires no faith, just a cell signal!"

spring is nearly here, i suppose the requisite increase in n-00-b incidents are slated to arrive as well.

I only glanced over this thread and saw a little discussion about rap cleaning. I started to skim through some of the posts. I rap clean nearly everything, don't have much of a choice most of the time more of a soloist myself. In the posts that I skimmed through I did not see anyone mention a third hand, which should be used whenever you rappel, at least I always use one, and most of the multi-pitch and big wall climbers that I know do as well.

Also I think the criminal thing is not the fact the route was rap cleaned, the culprit is people who learn to climb indoors and never pick up any of the great books we have on how to build anchors, climbing, or a self rescue book. Knowledge is power there is no reason for a great many of the things I see going on in the Utah valley area to be gong on, this is of course a complete other discussion.

I apologize about bring up an old post, and any spelling errors I made have made.

Rob Schwarzmann

I just want to add that I think the indoor climbing community could help educate people about a lot of these outdoor issues (rap, clipping, cleaning, etc). At my local gyms, the employees won't even let you touch the lead rope (even just to the second bolt) without taking their 'certification', which usually requires classes at odd hours and a hefty down payment. So how am I to show my wife about back-clipping and z-clipping? How are we to practice clipping from different angles? My local gyms don't even have eyelets at chest height, to safely practice cleaning with.

So since people often can not "learn" to do many of these techniques in the safety of the gym, they have no choice but to practice them outside. I find this situation absurd, and I think the indoor climbing community holds a great amount of responsibility for these outdoor accidents.

Like my wife replied after a few run-ins with various employees at various gyms, "I guess the only place people can practice is outside".

Yeah, although incidentally Provo's local gym does that pretty well. They have eyelets on the wall for practicing cleaning and such, and bolts on all the top rope walls, which allows for mock-leading routes (which is how I first learned). Certification is free (as long as you pass the first time), and they have classes if you are willing to drop a reasonable sum of cash. All this to say, in this case, I'm not sure the gym is to blame here. (Although, I did teach my friend to lead belay outside today. It was a little terrifying.)

lilnoobs wrote: "I guess the only place people can practice is outside".

Outside is a great place to practice. Remember that rock climbing has been around long before climbing gyms. Walk up to a clif/rock/underpass/tree/chain link fence and build a 2 or 3 point anchor at chest height. You can even walk side to side and clip quickdraws to the chain link fence and have your partner belay you. (I know it takes a little imagination to transfer a horizontal experience into a vertical one, but practicing rock craft on a windy day can help you feel like your up high.) Don't forget youtube is a great resource to watch how to climb, rap, and clean. If your wonderful wife is like mine, (tire change=rocket science) this horizontal to vertical transference may be too hard of a concept to grasp. In that case head on over to the baseball field and climb up the chain link backstop a few feet. Once you see the light bulb flash above her head, then you can begin to keep things on the ground.
DISCLAIMER; This comment may appear demeaning to women. It was not intended to be such. It was written for the benefit of anyone who is "spacial relation" challenged. If you are offended, please remember this is the internet.
tinyurl.com/kvxht54

Just don't be like this guy. You can still die in your backyard.
It's a guy cutting down a tree in his backyard.
The cops showed up, telling the guy he couldn't do what he was doing.
He told them to go to he-- it's his property and his tree.

Wait what? You joined MP to resurrect an 6 year old thread because you have a problem with how gyms price their product and manage risk in this very litigious world. Gym's are businesses formed in the hopes of making a bit of making money and operated in a manner that will keep them from losing a lawsuit.
Complaining about having to be certified "at odd hours and with hefty down payments" is silly.

Unsure of where lilnoobs lives but here in SLC Momentum has excellent indoor and outdoor climbing programs. Instructors are willing to work with students schedules for indoor offerings. They also offers many opportunities to climb outside with guides that work both in the gym and outdoors with Red River Adventures.
In addition gym members or day clients are always welcome to "mock lead" at any time.

The Inside/Out series, 2.5 day clinics, started in 2013 starts with an evening in the gym and then heads outside for a weekend of climbing and instruction. In 2014 Inside/Out has climbed in Red Rock, NV, Maple Canyon and The Wasatch. Fall offerings are slated for The Wasatch, Maple Canyon, Moab/Indian Creek and Red Rock, NV.

As Kevin mentioned there are numerous ways to practice clipping. Fences, stair rails, trees, etc.
Further more there are numerous areas that exist now in The Wastach that have been bolted at gym or tighter spacing.

Trolled? probably.