an unexplained accident

30 ft is a lot of rope to be stuck in a crack or let slack by a anchor slip... I am saying the same as others, user error and unwillingness to accept that they screwed up.

neils wrote: 
My question is this - has anyone ever been involved in a climbing accident where its essentially like WTF?  We did nothing wrong but obviously something went wrong and we can't explain it.  How do you mentally reconcile that?  We do our best to be safe and follow best practice.  I recognize climbing is dangerous and things happen - there are always circumstances and things that happen out of our control.  But that is a bit of difficult thing to swallow...anything can go wrong at any time regardless of what you do...yes I know thats how life is - its accepted risk - but an event that appears to be an "anomaly" or "freak accident" in a normal, frequent climbing procedure is a bit unnerving.  Has anyone ever experienced something like this and what did you do?  Just chalk it up to an accident and move on?  Recently I listened to a podcast where a guy was climbing in el dorado canyon and all of his bomber cams inexplicably ripped and he discussed it at length.  This isn't what my group went through but similar in some ways.

Yes. When I first started out, my neighbor and I went to a local outcropping, scrambled around to the top, and then tied his rope to a tree.  
We had read about knots, and learned that a bowline was the best. So, we tied a bowline, and we thought we checked it. Then, my neighbor started rapping down, and I just solo downclimbed. It was maybe a 35-50 foot, lower-angle face, steeper at the bottom. I got down first, and continued bouldering at the base. My neighbor came rapping down, got right next to me, and then the knot at the top came untied. He fell about 5 feet to the ground.

After that, he never climbed again, and I never used a bowline.
But I have no idea what happened. Apparently, we tied the knot wrong. But it is amazing that it held for 90% of his rap, failing just at the end.

Glad to hear your friend is ok, be careful out there

Nick Sweeney wrote:

This type of accident is fairly common with Gri Gri devices.  I'd guess that many of these incidents are never reported or published because many times, people are able to walk away with minor injuries.

Typically, here's what happens:

The belayer is using proper gri gri technique by opening the locking mechanism with the left hand while controlling the lower with their right hand on the brake strand.  For whatever reason (fatigue, friction burn, distraction, etc.), the belayer loses control of the brake strand.  The left hand instinctively pulls down hard on the brake lever, which holds the camming mechanism open and sends the climber into free fall.

This is exactly what I thought. I'm fairly new to climbing but have read a lot about accidents. I climb with some new climbers at times and got the Grigri+ to specifically avoid this as being possible. I know a lot of people laugh at the antipanick feature of the plus but if your belayer isn't experienced you should have it imo.

Skimming the thread I didn't clearly see this explanation, although some of the posts seemed to imply something like it: It's likely that the rope jammed or partially jammed somewhere between the anchor and the lowering climber - flared crack features are notorious for doing this. It's possible that the belayer continued to feed rope, creating a bunch of slack (the weight of the free rope above the jam might have cause a similar amount of pull as a climber lowering on a partially jammed rope). Then the jam freed itself, with the slack creating a long fall. Variations of this scenario are pretty common!

yup this ^^
with the rope jammed and just barely slivering through a v slot or notch.  the belayer would still be lowering and seeing the climber lowering but may have not noticed at a much slower pace than the amount of rope he was feeding then all of a sudden the rope may have popped out..

neils wrote: 
I will try and make this as simple as possible - a climber was on an anchor at the top of a climb on a large ledge.  was going to rappel but realized the rappel device was left on the ground by accident.  on an adjacent climb off the same shared anchor another pair had a TR set up. a decision was made to use this rope to lower the climber.  the climber tied a fig 8 on a bight to a locker to belay loop on the non gear side of the rope.  initially they were going to tie into the end and pull up all the rope but it was an 80 meter rope and they decided to go with the bight.  it was confirmed there was enough rope on the ground to get them down.  they clipped in and weighted the anchor while on PAS.  taken tight from the ground they were lowered about 75 ft with no issue.  about 25 ft up from the ground they fell and the rope was running.  I was above on rappel watching.  Prior the fall it seems the climber had noticed rope of some sort in a crack - it may have been slack - it may have been tail off the bite - that is unknown.  The belayer says as the climber fell the rope was not running fast through the device.  The rope was still in the device when they hit.  No gear had pulled on the gear side.   They were still completely tied in when they decked.  No gear failed up top.  Everything was bomber and solid.

1. Could you have clipped the forgotten belay device to a bight on the end of the rappel line for the climber to haul up? This happens all the time. 

2. The climber could have rappelled with a munter - though unfortunately it seems many folks don't know how to do that.

Both of these options could have avoided the need for lowering off someone else's line.

Glad to hear everyone is okay.

Grigri panic happens but when it does happen it will be obvious. There is still friction in the device when the lever is fully engaged and does not result in immediate "free fall." Unless the belayer completely let go of the rope and is not 'fessing up, GriGri error does not explain what the OP described.

neils wrote: I was recently involved in a lowering accident - I was not the injured party nor was I the person doing the lowering but it was in my climbing group for the day.  I really don't want to go into all the details for  analysis here (I hope that is understood)  We talked it over with each other, as well as with other experienced guide folks and went over everything that transpired.  Essentially we cannot account for how and why the person being lowered fell.  Nothing points to a sound explanation of belayer error, device failure, anchor failure, or anything else conclusive.  The practices used for the situation we were in were deemed "sound" - nothing really strange or out of the ordinary.  But something obviously went wrong we cannot account for.

My question is this - has anyone ever been involved in a climbing accident where its essentially like WTF?  We did nothing wrong but obviously something went wrong and we can't explain it.  How do you mentally reconcile that?  We do our best to be safe and follow best practice.  I recognize climbing is dangerous and things happen - there are always circumstances and things that happen out of our control.  But that is a bit of difficult thing to swallow...anything can go wrong at any time regardless of what you do...yes I know thats how life is - its accepted risk - but an event that appears to be an "anomaly" or "freak accident" in a normal, frequent climbing procedure is a bit unnerving.  Has anyone ever experienced something like this and what did you do?  Just chalk it up to an accident and move on?  Recently I listened to a podcast where a guy was climbing in el dorado canyon and all of his bomber cams inexplicably ripped and he discussed it at length.  This isn't what my group went through but similar in some ways.

it wont let me post below so adding here:

EDIT  ok - I will try and make this as simple as possible - a climber was on an anchor at the top of a climb on a large ledge.  was going to rappel but realized the rappel device was left on the ground by accident.  on an adjacent climb off the same shared anchor another pair had a TR set up. a decision was made to use this rope to lower the climber.  the climber tied a fig 8 on a bight to a locker to belay loop on the non gear side of the rope.  initially they were going to tie into the end and pull up all the rope but it was an 80 meter rope and they decided to go with the bight.  it was confirmed there was enough rope on the ground to get them down.  they clipped in and weighted the anchor while on PAS.  taken tight from the ground they were lowered about 75 ft with no issue.  about 25 ft up from the ground they fell and the rope was running.  I was above on rappel watching.  Prior the fall it seems the climber had noticed rope of some sort in a crack - it may have been slack - it may have been tail off the bite - that is unknown.  The belayer says as the climber fell the rope was not running fast through the device.  The rope was still in the device when they hit.  No gear had pulled on the gear side.   They were still completely tied in when they decked.  No gear failed up top.  Everything was bomber and solid.

All we can speculate is, as someone said above - somehow the rope got around or in a feature of some kind that "popped" and caused slack to release coupled with the person stopping at a small ledge on the way down as others have said - maybe it was 20 or 25 ft?  I am not sure. This is what I know based on what I saw and what was discussed after.

Miraculously this person only suffered an injured foot.  As I said, it looked very bad.

Yes, I've seen this type of thing happen, it's a flaw in the way the Gri lowers. Belayor loses control of brake strand panics and pulls back harder on handle instinctively, (panic=contraction).

I’m sorry that you were involved in an accident. It sounds like it may have been serious. I hope not.

Like many others have said, it was most likely user error. Unfortunately the involved parties are claiming to have done everything correctly and you are forced to believe them. But in reality, someone probably did something to cause the accident. They may not be 100% sure it was their fault, and that is normal. What is not normal is that everyone involved can say they are 100% sure, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that they did everything correctly. That is very rare.

No matter what the experience level, climbers usually have fuzzy moments where things happened too fast for them to account for everything (eg how fast the rope REALLY ran through a grigri or EXACTLY how much weight was actually on the rope during the lowering process). You may not ever figure out exactly what happened, but to just accept that it was act of God is silly. I urge you to reconsider your position and avoid climbing with anyone who is unwilling to do so. 

Reading comprehension 101:  As others already pointed out, panic related Gri accident result in rope shooting through the device. OP clearly stated that no such thing occurred. Let's not blame the device, no?

Nick Sweeney wrote:

This type of accident is fairly common with Gri Gri devices.  I'd guess that many of these incidents are never reported or published because many times, people are able to walk away with minor injuries.

Typically, here's what happens:

The belayer is using proper gri gri technique by opening the locking mechanism with the left hand while controlling the lower with their right hand on the brake strand.  For whatever reason (fatigue, friction burn, distraction, etc.), the belayer loses control of the brake strand.  The left hand instinctively pulls down hard on the brake lever, which holds the camming mechanism open and sends the climber into free fall.

Wow - sounds like not just “deadly ATC”, but deadly GriGri! I’ll stick with my MJ.

Paul Deger wrote:

Wow - sounds like not just “deadly ATC”, but deadly GriGri! I’ll stick with my MJ.

You want a belay device that can increase the opposing force created by your mass. 

F=ma

J Achey wrote: Skimming the thread I didn't clearly see this explanation, although some of the posts seemed to imply something like it: It's likely that the rope jammed or partially jammed somewhere between the anchor and the lowering climber - flared crack features are notorious for doing this. It's possible that the belayer continued to feed rope, creating a bunch of slack (the weight of the free rope above the jam might have cause a similar amount of pull as a climber lowering on a partially jammed rope). Then the jam freed itself, with the slack creating a long fall. Variations of this scenario are pretty common!

Taking the OPs accounts at face value (no belayer error, no rope observed running rapidly through device, etc), I think Mr. J A nailed it here.  

The remaining part I struggle with here is how the belayer couldn't tell the difference between the weight of a lowering climber (albeit, with some drag vs the weight of the rope only on the brake side of the Gri?  The only way you could build enough slack in the system above said rope jam for a 25+ ft fall is if it was only the rope weight left on the anchor.  Giving generous benefit of the doubt, this leads me to believe there was a lot of friction during the lower (i.e. jam) that progressively got worse, leading the belayer to be desensitized to it or disregard the anomaly altogether.

Proposed sequence:  lowering climber rope partially jammed slowing decent, belayer pulled Gri "wide open" taking braking hand off to keep feeding rope (this is the withheld detail), rope feed rate exceeded climber lowering rate until there was 15-20 ft of slack, then jam freed resulting in 25 ft fall crediting some stretch.

In any case, culpability still lies with the belayer by not recongizing and stopping when met with unexpected conditions.

the schmuck wrote: Reading comprehension 101:  As others already pointed out, panic related Gri accident result in rope shooting through the device. OP clearly stated that no such thing occurred. Let's not blame the device, no?

In a “panic-related Grigri accident resulting in rope shooting through the device,” the device is not at fault; it functioned exactly as it’s supposed to.  That type of “accident” is a user error.

I did something similar last year with different results where I was in a steep gulley and rappelled off a line where I could not see the anchor but my friends had set it up for me.  Apparently the rest of the rope was tangled above me and wrapped around some rocks.  I weighted the line and assumed it was good to go.  The rap line held but very easily could have blown out and dropped me at least 40 feet more without warning.  

Well.. the answer has been stated several times above and it's not the grigri

This is one of the known fails of an 80m rope on a short climb.  Especially a short low angle ledged climb.  

There's so much rope in the system that when it gets hung up in a nested place no one notices.. A grigri belay won't feel it.  Ends are down.  Confidence high. An 80m has a lot of rope stretch that interferes with assessment by the belayer.  

Known problem.  As well as others with 80m

BillS wrote:

Life comprehension 101 - the guy who f'd up may not be your best witness.

OP added some details.  J Achey and myself nailed it.  Thread over.

This is completely true, however my response was targeted solely at the folks who immediately turned to the "GriGri the death machine" explanation. 

EDITED: 3:20am 6/11/19

There is a clear path to this disaster.  What started as a simple mistake of leaving the ground without a desired piece of gear, the personal safety device, was compounded by well-meaning actions, with "sloppy" follow-through.
 
in summary:(standard in accident debriefs, for the benefit of all &  the injured)
Beyond the question of communication between all the parties involved. Allowing others to assert themselves. . . .
Taking a "short cut" by not tieing into the end of the rope, due to perceived urgency when none existed.  
 Then "sloppy rope management; not securing the 'trailing-tail-end' of the rope in a coil carried by the person being lowered.
While It is a good thing to take advantage of sharing of gear between parties,
in this case, maybe the wrong gear was shared? the long rope as opposed to providing a device to allow for self-sufficiency?
Also, knowing a bit about the type of activity often at the location, lowering instead of rapping when there is possibly a distracted belayer;
 there is always a lot of distracting activity at the base of the Near Trapps. Especially at the end of a great day, it is a very social scene.

 Sorry to hear that someone was dropped. I hope that all involved, take note &  learn from this
 &
 I hope the climber who was hurt makes a full & swift recovery.

.(Getting dropped & Broken Heels Are very  serious injuries! !)

` . `

 it was more objective to comment without the peanut gallery 's influence/ input.
I wasn't going to read more than the original incident info, before weighing in in part to preserve my initial thoughts
 - now -  having skimmed some of the responses -  I see my thoughts were previously expressed,
.

I love how no one reads the whole thread