Simulrapping mishap

Had a near death experience today while doing a pretty regular Simulrap with my partner. (I know I shouldn’t be simulraping, got into bad habit). My partner at the time was very new to climbing but is pretty good with the basics. Got the rappel all rigged up and weighted it before I noticed they had their grigri threaded backwards. However I didn’t notice until it was already weighted. While weighted they leaned up to go back to fix it. Resulting in me plummeting ~20ft down until my partner very luckily jammed their hand into the grigri, jamming it.

A lot of sloppy mechanics while setting up the rappel and ignoring many safety checks, resulting in a very nearly fatal accident. Will definitely be a lot safer in my future simulraps and there will definitely be less of them. 

Thanks for the story, I'm glad you're here to tell it. Consider sending it over to the AAC so it gets counted in their yearly accidents report/stats.

Elliot Whitewrote:

… until my partner very luckily jammed their hand into the grigri, jamming it.

Sounds very painful.  Gloved?  Wishing the best for your partner as well while you both process what happened.

Speaking from experience with my own mistakes, a day of thinking about it is good - you’ve touched on a lot of relevant factors. But there may be more to personally draw from this close call.

Also, while I am loathe to simul-rap, I don’t think a self-imposed ban from doing it will ultimately be the primary take away.  A significant pause definitely seems in order. But not a lifetime ban.

One of the main drawbacks to simul-rappelling is that a mistake by one climber often puts both climbers at risk.  Additionally there are more sources of error available than with normal rappelling.  While simul-rappelling is certainly a tool in the toolbox I don't think it should be used as a matter of course.

Instead of not simul-rapping ever again, you can just opt to not weight your rappel/remove your personal anchor until you've actually checked the safety of the rappel. I know you said you ignored safety checks, but I think ignoring the safety checks is the main cause of this mishap, rather than the simulrapping itself. 

Eric Marxwrote:

Instead of not simul-rapping ever again, you can just opt to not weight your rappel/remove your personal anchor until you've actually checked the safety of the rappel. I know you said you ignored safety checks, but I think ignoring the safety checks is the main cause of this mishap, rather than the simulrapping itself. 

The mishap was a direct result of the act. The safety checks exist to reduce the risks of the act.

Eric Marxwrote:

Instead of not simul-rapping ever again, you can just opt to not weight your rappel/remove your personal anchor until you've actually checked the safety of the rappel. I know you said you ignored safety checks, but I think ignoring the safety checks is the main cause of this mishap, rather than the simulrapping itself. 

Yea I agree, that is what I normally do. I just got too comfortable in a situation that calls for me to be more alert. I’m definitely gonna be more mindful of what happened and the risks it comes with. I will be primarily rappelling normally however I’m definitely not going to ban simulrapping if there is a situation it shows beneficial. Even tho this was a situation that could have killed me I think it’s a good thing it happened safely because it made me more alert to the real dangers of not paying attention to safety procedures. Because I myself am relatively very new to trad climbing. Only about a year. Maybe 300~ pitches led 

Bill Lawrywrote:

Sounds very painful.  Gloved?  Wishing the best for your partner as well while you both process what happened.

Speaking from experience with my own mistakes, a day of thinking about it is good - you’ve touched on a lot of relevant factors. But there may be more to personally draw from this close call.

Also, while I am loathe to simul-rap, I don’t think a self-imposed ban from doing it will ultimately be the primary take away.  A significant pause definitely seems in order. But not a lifetime ban.

Not gloved but hand is ok. Just a little chunk missing. Definitely just gonna be a lot safer from here on and always follow all the safety procedures 

Jason Kimwrote:

The mishap was a direct result of the act. The safety checks exist to reduce the risks of the act.

I think you're overthinking it. We could reduce the argument to the idea that the act of him getting out of bed in the morning was the reason this happened, therefore he should not leave his bed. The fact that he skipped the crucial step of checking the safety of a rappel before weighting it, has no correlation to the type of rappel nor the safety of that particular rappel over another, be it a prussiked ATC, self-equalized gri gri, simul rap, munter or a bunch of biners strung together to create a belay device.

Elliot were you crushing the nears yesterday? I was in the party on eraserhead/forbidden zone.

One of the benefits of simul rapping is speed and efficiency.   One of the dangers of simul rapping is speed and efficiency.   The technique has its advantages but you really need to slow down and have your crap together and really ask yourself if being a minute faster for each rappel is worth it.   Lots of links in a chain for potential mishaps while simul rapping.  

Elliot Whitewrote:

Had a near death experience today while doing a pretty regular Simulrap with my partner. (I know I shouldn’t be simulraping, got into bad habit). My partner at the time was very new to climbing but is pretty good with the basics. Got the rappel all rigged up and weighted it before I noticed they had their grigri threaded backwards. However I didn’t notice until it was already weighted. While weighted they leaned up to go back to fix it. Resulting in me plummeting ~20ft down until my partner very luckily jammed their hand into the grigri, jamming it.

A lot of sloppy mechanics while setting up the rappel and ignoring many safety checks, resulting in a very nearly fatal accident. Will definitely be a lot safer in my future simulraps and there will definitely be less of them. 

Simul rap has extra ways to die and you have to rely on a partner 100. Not much faster either, don’t bother with it.

Just stay on the other side of the knot if you want to live.  NBD.

I’ve only simul rapped twice in 43 years of climbing.  And that was to get off of towers with no anchors at the top.  Never had any other desire or need for doing it.  
I’m really glad you only had a scare and not something a whole lot worse.

Eric Marxwrote:

I think you're overthinking it. We could reduce the argument to the idea that the act of him getting out of bed in the morning was the reason this happened, therefore he should not leave his bed. The fact that he skipped the crucial step of checking the safety of a rappel before weighting it, has no correlation to the type of rappel nor the safety of that particular rappel over another, be it a prussiked ATC, self-equalized gri gri, simul rap, munter or a bunch of biners strung together to create a belay device.

Elliot were you crushing the nears yesterday? I was in the party on eraserhead/forbidden zone.

I see your point, but disagree. A sequence of events led to a near catastrophic accident. We can work backwards in time and stop at some arbitrary point to illogically conclude that “x” factor led to the event, or we can acknowledge that the event would have been less likely to occur in the first place, if the party hadn’t made the decision to simul rap.

In a simul rap, a missed safety check has the potential to kill two people instead of just one, so there is a legitimate increase in risk which can only be attributed to the act of simul rapping itself.

Finally, if you rig a standard single line rappel with a grigri and thread it backwards by accident, I think it’s far less likely that you’d end up losing control catastrophically. So it’s not like we’re comparing apples to apples here.

Eric Marxwrote:

I think you're overthinking it. We could reduce the argument to the idea that the act of him getting out of bed in the morning was the reason this happened, therefore he should not leave his bed. The fact that he skipped the crucial step of checking the safety of a rappel before weighting it, has no correlation to the type of rappel nor the safety of that particular rappel over another, be it a prussiked ATC, self-equalized gri gri, simul rap, munter or a bunch of biners strung together to create a belay device.

Elliot were you crushing the nears yesterday? I was in the party on eraserhead/forbidden zone.

I was over in the trapps but will be in the nears going for a red point burn on eraserhead on Sunday. If ya see a purple painted ford ranger in the overlook lot I’m up there 

What's the point of simul-rapping in the Gunks?

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

What's the point of simul-rapping in the Gunks?

The perceived cool factor.

There's very very rarely any need to simul-rappel. The main exception is towers without anchors. The only time I have done a simul-rappel in nearly 45 years of climbing is exactly once. It was not needed, we did it only because a group let us jump ahead in a slot canyon and we wanted to get out of their way quickly in return. It was a short 40' rap into water so low risk management.

Glad that worse didn't come to worst here.  I've gone back and forth on whether simul is a good idea; it's seemed to make sense for me on long routes in El Potrero (all bolted anchors, lots of nasty plants that catch ropes so it's useful to have two people working on the ropes at the same time).  For shorter routes, for me, I don't see the point, but that's just one rando view.  If you do simul, I'd say be on heightened vigilance from when you start until you're both on the ground--all climbing is an inherently dangerous activity, simul especially so.

I've been propositioned by partners to simul on a few occasions at cliffs that are only a couple hundred feet tall. The answer is always "no". The amount of time you save is not worth introducing unnecessary risk when you are only making one or two rappels, and I would never ever simul rap with an inexperienced climber. I'm glad to hear your partner was able to think quickly and save your life. 

Well, if I were to Simul rap with a person who was “very new to climbing” I wouldn’t let that person do anything without checking it. 

Russ Wallingwrote:

Just stay on the other side of the knot if you want to live.  NBD.

This is 2023. Everyone climbs with 80s, every route has been retro'd for single rope raps, only kooks and gumbies bring even a tag line, never mind a whole other dynamic cord. Walk off? Sounds like work.

We've achieved utopia