Another Accident due to mis-use of the Gri-gri

rocknice2 wrote:BB, after rereading the thread title you are correct. All belay devices are subject to misuse. There is no getting away from human error. We can mitigate the error by extensive training but it will never go away completely. I was under the assumption that you were saying, auto block devices fail for no apparent reason. To the best of my recollection this has never been shown

the grigri and other such devices are great when used correctly ...

however there are certain "failure" modes to these devices ... its not that the device fail but the use is unaware or insufficiently trained or not paying attention that allow these "failures" to occur

the only possible exception is the cinch which is known by the DAV as a "complex" device being "prone to errors" and has a pin that needs to be inspected and that few folks seem to be aware about it

in all other cases its the failure of the user ...

however you see folks all the time say "give a grigri to a newbie" ... "im not sure if she can catch me on an ATC so ill give her a smart" ... etc ...

in this thread alone weve had folks think the grigri is fine as a "hands free device" (theres been drops) ... that the grigri will always act as an ATC if its defeated (test by MPers show this is marginal at best) ... and that its fine to belay constantly with the "fast feed" method (folks do it all the time)

the failure is in the understanding of the device by the use or "willful blindness" as evidenced by the attitudes of some folks

used properly a grigri "should" be safer than an ATC for one simple reason ... rockfall

the reality is that folks still get dropped all the time with em

Healyje wrote:bearbreeder, how many people have you dropped since you started climbing?

ive never even come close to dropping anyone ... now folks have gotten hurt when i was belaying them but hopefully not because of my actions (one case of climber failing to account for pendulum, another because the leader got the rope caught behind the rope on a bit of a runnout)

even with running back, sitting down, jumping off a ledge to shorten a fall, being smacked by a rock, having dogs go after me, jumping for the moon on dynamic belays ... ive never come close to dropping anyone

im not anybody special but my partners seem to want me to give them catches on the climbs that involve more "active" belays ....

the key IMO is not blind overconfidence ... but simply be aware that, like falling when soloing, anyone or any device can drop someone ... and do your utmost to respect that fact

of course they need to put up with me fbook and arguing senselessly on MP while belaying em !!!

im of a firm belief that belaying is the most important thing youll ever do in climbing ... die climbing if you want but try not to kill someone else belaying

not to long ago i was having a conversation with some friends ... and the subject came to belaying ... i was shocked at how many of em got dropped or dropped someone, and im not talking about gnarly runnout climbs ....

im going to say this as a simple "fact" ... if you have been climbing with "modern" climbers a decent amount youll know someone who was dropped or dropped someone personally ... if you dont you soon will

thats the reality today

I seem to recall a statistic that stated there was a greater chance of getting dropped by a belayer with an ATC as opposed to a GriGri. It was a gym statistic that I think you posted of maybe Jim T. I've tried to find out but can't seem to.

bearbreeder wrote:I've never come close to dropping anyone...

Exactly.

rocknice2 wrote:I seem to recall a statistic that stated there was a greater chance of getting dropped by a belayer with an ATC as opposed to a GriGri. It was a gym statistic that I think you posted of maybe Jim T. I've tried to find out but can't seem to.

the DAV did a study i believe it was 10 germans gyms or so

basically it shows a marginally lower "accident" rate overall for assisted locking devices (~5.8% vs 7.7% for smart/grigri/clickup vs tube) .... however the sample size was ~1000 so the difference is likely not statistically significant

note that in the study the munter also had much lower "accident rate" more than the smart or click up ... does that mean that munters are "safer"?

or perhaps its the more experienced beers swilling bavarians who use the munter and grigri in those kraut gyms ...

or perhaps the numbers are simply not statistically significant with a proper confidence level ...

;)

Interesting statistics, bearbreeder.

The tube devices dominant the graphs. I would think this applies outside the gyms also, for them being the most prevalent device used with the time frame they have been available for, but I was made to rethink an assumption I had.

I thought, and this was just a guess and may sound counterintuitive, but the more you had to pay attention to the belay the less likely of catastrophic failure on the part of the belayer. With the tube style devices, along with the HMS (Munter?), the attention required to ensure the belay system stays acceptable to brake a fall would be more pronounced.

Then again, complacency and competence come into the fray. This is what I believe Healyje trys to stress so much with the Grigri. Correct me if I'm wrong, Healy.

A lot of climbers have come, and more will take their place. A lot will be new, or inexperienced. Some may be inattentive when urgency is needed. I think it all comes down to too much faith being given to the "mechanically complex" or other devices working without much/any input from the belayer. Along with human reflex doing the wrong thing at the wrong time and in the wrong place, the statistics are inevitable.

Any idea on what the expanse of time is taken into consideration with the data you have presented - just curious? Also, on the bar graph, what does "Tre" represent?

Tre stands for TRE Sirius, an assisted braking device no longer made but still popular with some.

Top Rope Hero wrote:Then again, complacency and competence come into the fray. This is what I believe Healyje trys to stress so much with the Grigri. Correct me if I'm wrong, Healy.

You are correct regarding complacency and competence. The problem with the autoblockers is they breed / teach complacency so people learning with one ultimately have a hard time achieving true competence and mastery to the point where there is no circumstance where a belay will fail regardless of the device in use.

The level of dropping we see today is due to the mass preference of belay device being driven by the desire to offload the physical effort involved with holding body weight for extended periods rather than catching falls. That 'offloading' unavoidably requires a level of mechanical complexity which is problematic in multiple ways and just the act of abdicating one's personal responsibility for holding a climber to a mechanical device of any kind invariably comes at a behavioral cost. The fact that the device also does any actual 'catching' in falls only further compounds the behavioral problems.

If you bring up generations of climbers believing holding and catching climbers is the not their personal responsibility, but rather that of a device, and couple that with a device which does so effectively 98% of the time, then what we're seeing now is the inevitable result. Bottom line is you can't expect people to perform well in that 2% situation when they don't have much actual experience supporting a body weight and catching falls.

Oh my God you guys are so full of shit. Preserve the exciting experience by not bolting slabs, then belay each other with super safe ATC's. Fucking LOL. Four people were dropped at the local gym this year, all on ATC's. Who gets dropped is beginner and idiots, ironically, there are a lot of beginner idiots that use ATC's.

Healyje wrote: Bottom line is you can't expect people to perform well in that 2% situation when they don't have much actual experience supporting a body weight and catching falls.

And I forget how do they perform if they're unconscious from rock fall and using an ATC?

https://www.reddit.com/r/climbing/comments/3vpg1s/question_for_anyone_with_a_gri_gri_2/cxpwepw oh and in case anyone missed it ... the deleted rock and ice video where the grigri didnt seem to function very well "as a tube" should the camming not engage youtu.be/4A8-jsLAZV4

Was there any input from Petzl on this accident? Interesting incident... specifically the shock loading and release of the device. It almost looks as though the the rope snapped or a large amount of slack was instantly available in the system.

Morgan Patterson wrote: And I forget how do they perform if they're unconscious from rock fall and using an ATC?

Which happens what, like once per every 10k drops? If you think that's even on the risk radar compared to simply being dropped you should quit climbing today.

Healyje wrote: Which happens what, like once per every 10k drops? If you think that's even on the risk radar compared to simply being dropped you should quit climbing today.

Well when u spend ur climbing time out cleaning new routes with lots of loose its a very real concern. And I've been using the gri for decades now and have never dropped or seen someone dropped on one. Witnessed someone dropped on an ATC though, that sucked for them.

Using a gri gri one day saved my buddy's life... If we were using an ATC he would have been dead. Never heard someone say good thing we used the ATC and not the grigri that day... it saved a life.

Morgan Patterson wrote: Well when u spend ur climbing time out cleaning new routes with lots of loose its a very real concern. And I've been using the gri for decades now and have never dropped or seen someone dropped on one.

That's likely more a result of having been climbing for decades than using the grigri.

Morgan Patterson wrote: And I've been using the gri for decades now and have never dropped or seen someone dropped on one.

Good for you. And in decades you don't know anyone has?

Morgan Patterson wrote:Using a gri gri one day saved my buddy's life... If we were using an ATC he would have been dead. Never heard someone say good thing we used the ATC and not the grigri that day... it saved a life.

And other days it costs a life.

Tim Lutz wrote:I've been hit by large rocks twice in the last 3 years. By instinct, I tried to keep a brake hand on, but that is kinda hard when you are 3 feet up and spinning like a top, and you've just been hit with a 10lb rock on your shoulder.

If that's the case then I'd say judgment, rather than belay device choice, sounds like more the issue and a grigri is probably your best choice and hope going forward.

holdup,

I ignored the first 21 pages, but can anyone precisely say what went wrong in that video? Did I miss something? That's some scary shit. I see his hand is too high the instant before the drop, but you can't tell me he was holding the cam open another half second after the drop started. I wouldn't expect the device to behave like that, what the hell happened?

Also, am I the only one who wants the GriGri 1 to come back. I felt safer with that piece.

Healyje wrote: Good for you. And in decades you don't know anyone has?

Nope sorry...

And yeah Tom I'm a much bigger fan of the 1 than the 2.

That is fucking scary as hell. I'm still in disbelief. I mean his hand is obviously in the wrong spot, you can tell me wet rope, and I see he is just starting to weight the rope, no backup, etc. Even worse is that his dynamic bouncing ends up matching the rhythm of his feeding, and so he is bottoming out his bounce as his hand is in the worst possible position.

But all that considered, I would NEVER expect the gri to behave like that. Scary.

Tim Lutz wrote: Brake hand not on hip, it is above device, wet rope, and the rock takes some of the guys weight as he is fiddling with it. Same as if you try to lower yourself on rappel: the Gri needs full weight to engage.

Then why the sudden shock load? I've never been able to produce that kind of a load and snap when releasing the grigri? I've been able to get the climbers strand stuck between the brake and the device on the 2 but I still wouldnt expect that kind of a release even from that. Additionally the rope seems very slack in the frames after the release.. like there was a lot more slack above him all of a sudden.

Morgan Patterson wrote: Then why the sudden shock load?

What shock load? The guy had the lever open the correct amount to go down then both loaded the rope more and went onto a wet patch of rope and then froze on the handle, basic incompetence really.

Tim Lutz wrote: The slack is because he unweights himself with his feet on the slab. It is a subtle movement. If the rope wasn't wet, and his brake hand was in the right place, I bet the Gri wouldn't have failed. My guess is that is it a combination of the 3 factors.

I've watched it several times over... he doesn't unweight the rope from what I can tell, he pushes away from the wall but is hanging in harness the entire time. Also it releases when he is swinging back into the wall. I've done that hand motion before in my own experiences, specifically when you're using a large diameter rope and it wont feed on its own through the device. Sometimes you need to lift the rope up from your waist and feed it to the device. I could imagine going from dry to wet rope could cause a slip that could jossel a noob and mess up their descent but I'm having trouble recreating the shock part in my own mind.

And jim... at 25 sec you can see the device snap forward dramatically and you hear a loud slap/crack noise from the device which appears to me to be the unloading of the shock. Several frames later the rope which is above the climber appears slack like when you have a shock load that is released. So how do you create that kind of shock unloading hanging on the rope?

I can see/understand how bouncing on the rope, hitting a wet section, and poor timing on the brake release could produce some shock loading but that's appears to be a violent snap/reaselse of the rope in the grigri

J Q wrote:Oh my God you guys are so full of shit. Preserve the exciting experience by not bolting slabs, then belay each other with super safe ATC's. Fucking LOL. Four people were dropped at the local gym this year, all on ATC's. Who gets dropped is beginner and idiots, ironically, there are a lot of beginner idiots that use ATC's.

reddit.com/r/climbing/comme…

your attitude of "only newbs drop folks" is why even "experienced" folks still drop other folks despite raging denials on da intrawebz

BigFeet wrote:Interesting statistics, bearbreeder. The tube devices dominant the graphs. I would think this applies outside the gyms also, for them being the most prevalent device used with the time frame they have been available for, but I was made to rethink an assumption I had. I thought, and this was just a guess and may sound counterintuitive, but the more you had to pay attention to the belay the less likely of catastrophic failure on the part of the belayer. With the tube style devices, along with the HMS (Munter?), the attention required to ensure the belay system stays acceptable to brake a fall would be more pronounced. Then again, complacency and competence come into the fray. This is what I believe Healyje trys to stress so much with the Grigri. Correct me if I'm wrong, Healy. A lot of climbers have come, and more will take their place. A lot will be new, or inexperienced. Some may be inattentive when urgency is needed. I think it all comes down to too much faith being given to the "mechanically complex" or other devices working without much/any input from the belayer. Along with human reflex doing the wrong thing at the wrong time and in the wrong place, the statistics are inevitable. Any idea on what the expanse of time is taken into consideration with the data you have presented - just curious? Also, on the bar graph, what does "Tre" represent?

you can find all the DAV articles and information here ... im too lazy to look it up again right now

alpenverein.de/Bergsport/Si…

as to the study the ... if you crunch the numbers you will see the click up has a "accident rate" of ~8.5% vs 7.7% for the tube ... does this mean the click up is any LESS safe ... or is there simply a lack of statistical significance for that comparison ... or other factors in its usage

if you took the DAV study literally folks should only be using grigris and munters !!!

Morgan Patterson wrote: Was there any input from Petzl on this accident? Interesting incident... specifically the shock loading and release of the device. It almost looks as though the the rope snapped or a large amount of slack was instantly available in the system.

after rock and ice deleted the vid to hide their "mistake"? .... not a chance !!!