Wear your harness high enough, and know how to give a soft catch!

Jon Ingram wrote: Thanks all for your comments and speculation. After this discussion, I wonder how much of it was the hard-catch, vs the pivot-point from my harness. I suspect it was both. 

Not having been there and not being familiar with the route, there's obviously some "slop" in this analysis, but I have seen and taken hundreds of falls of this type and I'd say your injury is 99% bad belay and 1% your harness being low.    

Given the position you were in and missing the hold, you're rotating right from the start (head & shoulders going down, feet still on the wall) long before your harness has any influence.

You said you were ~4' above the last bolt, which I'm guessing is measured from your eyes, so your waist is ~2' above the bolt and your feet at the bolt.     The most common mistake belayers make in this situation is to not have enough slack out.    You want the leader's waist to be about 5' below the bolt before the rope comes tight, so the belayer should have at least 3' of slack out, and maybe more depending on geometry.  
   
Without enough slack being given, the rope is going to come tight too soon,  accelerating the rotation and slamming the leader into the wall upside down; exactly what happened to you.  Even if you're not rotating, having the rope go tight with only 2-3' of rope between your waist and the bolt will slam you into the wall face first.

But shit happens. 

Shit does happen but in your case it could have been avoided.   Being a good belayer requires far more knowledge and skill than just locking off the brake strand in a fall.  Unfortunately, there's a lot of people out there that don't understand that.   Gyms don't teach it, most people don't practice it.

If you want to do a PSA about your accident, you should be recommending that people develop belaying skills for all the various situations and geometries that are encountered "out there".

Watch out you hipsters and your low rise harnesses!

I tie my chalkbag with a waterknot about 2 inch above my harness waistloop.  I tie it tight.  When looping the rope through my harness I include the chalkbag webbing in the knot.  That raises the catchpoint to help prevent inversion.

slimwrote: why does your partner need to check this? not their fault that you don't know how to put on your own harness.  good lord...

Totally disagree. This shows a sense of individualism and “pull up your own bootstraps” that isn’t warranted when two people get on a rope together. You’re a team — indeed, you are now partners — and if my partner is chafing at a safety check I’m making regarding their setup/gear/etc, I’m getting a new teammate.  

Jon: can you share what brand and model of harness you were wearing? 

I'm interested in this as well. 

I'd tie in with you Lora. I'm fine with folks checking me, and in fact, encourage it. I'f people had been watching Lynn Hill's tie in that time, Alex Honold's belayer or many other similar F**ups, they'd had saved those 2 some serious misery. It only take a moments inattention, no matter how much you've been climbing. Wonder what brand and model of harness Jon was wearing. 

BTW -Alina says that she was only 12-15 feet above the belay (no pro in) when she fell and broke her back. That could literally be most of us although we all try to get a piece in sooner. Sometimes you don't, or can't.  

This whole convo about harness height- got me thinking today when I had a “moment “ at the gym.. —Keep your leg loops snugged up too. This could easily be overlooked. 

Loose leg loops in a semi inverted fall can easily push you over backwards. Or that’s what sort of happened to me today.. I think..

Geoff Bindemanwrote:

This whole convo about harness height- got me thinking today when I had a “moment “ at the gym.. —Keep your leg loops snugged up too. This could easily be overlooked. 

Loose leg loops in a semi inverted fall can easily push you over backwards. Or that’s what sort of happened to me today.. I think..

Care to add details? This seems extremely unlikely. Is the rise on your harness too long for your build? That would do it, and leg loops would be blameless. 

Billcoewrote:

I'd tie in with you Lora.

I'm not tieing in with anyone who answers a 4 yr old thread like it was posted yesterday.

Fatality at red rocks from inversion causing head injury. Harness was just swami.

To add details-  waist of harness was snug just above my hips. Leg loops were loosish.  I’ve put  a harness on thousands of times,  I know how to do this. Just was a bit lax on the leg loops. Now consider the geometry here- falling off a steep roof- as the rope came tight , my leg loops did not come tight at the same moment but slid down toward my knees a little, then came tight. Felt like a fulcrum action bringing my knees up, which seemed to further rotate me backwards. It was inconsequential as I felt it happing and sort of straightened my legs or engaged my core to correct, and ended up upright on the rope.
thats about it. Thought it might be prudent to add my thoughts on it to this discussion.

Geoff Bindemanwrote:

To add details-  waist of harness was snug just above my hips. Leg loops were loosish.  I’ve put  a harness on thousands of times,  I know how to do this. Just was a bit lax on the leg loops. Now consider the geometry here- falling off a steep roof- as the rope came tight , my leg loops did not come tight at the same moment but slid down toward my knees a little, then came tight. Felt like a fulcrum action bringing my knees up, which seemed to further rotate me backwards. 

Your harness isn't adjusted properly.  The leg loops are too loose.  They should be snug around the top of your thigh.  All commercial leg loops have either elastic or buckles to keep them in the correct position: in that narrower area right below your hip-joint. 

The elastic bands on the back of the harness should be adjusted properly to keep the loops up in the back.  You can tie your knot tightly to draw the leg-loop-tie-in-point up tight with your waist tie-in point; helping to keep the leg loops up in front.   

Jon Ingramwrote: August of last year. It was perfect evening with a light breeze, and a beautiful sunset. I set off to lead 10b/c, feeling confident. As it goes with injuries, it was the last route of the day. As I progressed through a modest overhang, the only move I could see was a lunge towards a crimper. I was about 4 feet above my last bolt, tilted backwards on the overhang. I lunged backward and up for the crimper, barely grasping it. My fingers peeled off, and I was falling - feeling relaxed with the fall. As I fell the 10 ft, my body was slowly rotating backwards through the air, but I was still slightly upright when the rope went tight. My harness was around my waist, just below my navel (how I wear jeans). When the rope when tight, my body was whipped violently upside down, and I slammed into the rock with my back. My head was rattled, but ok due to the helmet, but I hit with so much force that it broke the cartilage off my sternum in 3 places (yes, it broke in the front, even though I got hit from behind).

What went wrong: A hard catch + wearing my harness too low. It's debatable, but I don't think either factor would have flipped me alone. My harness was too low around my waist, just below my navel. The hard catch caused me to pivot around this lower point. This contributed to the upside-down whip, instead of a right-side up correction.

Lessons Learned:
Check the height of your harness, and check your partner. This problem seems to be more common for men like me, without much of a waist, so it feels odd to wear it so high.
Perhaps more importantly, know how to give a soft catch, practice it, and make sure your partner know's how to as well.

NOTE: Post has been UPDATED to include and emphasize the "hard catch" as aproblem, based on the many thoughtful comments. Also, my original post said, Lesson: “PARTNER check the height of your harness!” However, I got some flack from admin for promoting a buddy check. So, I changed the post to emphasize checking yourself first, which I thought was obvious. So, just to be clear: check your own shit first and then your partner. Learn how to do a soft catch, and make sure your partner can as well. 

This has nothing to do with your harness or the catch, you just got to know how to fall.

Hint: Anticipate the fall and use your core to stay upright.