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11yr old climber falls at Smith Rocks
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https://centraloregondaily.com/smith-rock-fall-gofundme-rock-climbing/ Does anyone know the details of the accident? |
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Sucks when any climber is injured, but especially young kids. Obviously this dovetails with the kids and climbing thread, and my own daughters were climbing at 11 as well, but kids especially need to be protected from the risk of long falls. Will be interesting to better understand what actually happened here. |
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I heard him hit the ground from up in Aggro. It was a horrible sound that I hope to never have to hear again. |
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I m real sorry this happened but, from a foreign perspective, the craziest/sad thing to me is the NEED to launch a gofundme campaign everytime something like that happened... |
Fabien Mwrote: You're not wrong and I actually fully agree with you, but it seems pretty weird to bring that up here. |
Max Tepferwrote: Max, The very first line of the OP is a link to the GoFundMe account, so it's not irrelevant that Fabien commented on it. |
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I sincerely hope that it was a freak accident and Grandpa was in no way culpable. My own Dad was down for months when one of my daughters just got a cut when he was with them. Knock on wood and pray, etc that the kid recovers to good as new in a few months. I worry about Grandpa’s recovery depending on what happened. but even if totally nothing could’ve been done differently (as my dad’s case), Grandparents don’t shake this off easy. My heart goes out to the family. Often When it’s a a hurt kid, it’s usually the kid that recovers quickest |
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Yes, we know healthcare sucks here - thank you for bringing it up, almost forgot… |
MIchael Plappwrote: Why? Seriously, what more do you really need to know? |
Marc801 Cwrote: Well, for a while now I've increasingly wanted to only install perma anchors on single pitch climbs I put up so that once the leader clips the anchor nobody has to clean the anchor. We all see so, so many accidents during the cleaning process. The problem, as I see it, is that developers pay for their routes out of their own pockets and perma anchors are much more expensive than the common quicklink plus rap ring set-up that requires somebody to clean the anchor. So yes, if the 11 year old was hurt while cleaning an anchor, but a perma anchor would have prevented the accident, that's relevant to someone like me who might consider going with only perma anchors, at least on routes that are likely to be popular due to being moderate and easily accessed. Plus I have 3 kids ages 12 to 16 who climb with me, and I've been considering having them clean anchors, so it's not just morbid curiosity that leads people to want to know what happened. We don't let 11 year olds drive, but there is no "rule" on how old you should be to clean an anchor, so adults have to make that call and it helps to have some data or even anecdotes out there. In any event, glad he made it and hope he fully recovers. (And I am in no way blaming the adult(s) with the child for what happened) |
Mark Pilatewrote: Sounds like he may have been cleaning for a rap? “From what I am hearing, I believe Cohen was starting to descend and just made a mistake with what he was clipping onto or clipping off of. That’s when he fell,” said Lee |
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Why? Seriously, what more do you really need to know? First, the formation and route where it occured. Second, since the description of the cause of the fall as “mistaken unclipping” is second hand from friends, confirmation of the cause of the fall. The routes suitable for top-roping children at Smith see a lot of traffic and anchor failure, although unlikely, is always a possibility. Regardless, more information of what happened might help people change procedures to hopefully prevent this from happening again. |
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I am a big supporter of clip in hardware and making it as easy as possible to clean an anchor for community safety. It is the leaders responsibility to help ensure follower safety. When possible I pre clean the anchor as in the below photo so the last climber simply takes my carabiner with them and lowers down. I consider this even safer than mussy hook anchors when sending up an inexperienced follower to clean the anchor. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Best wishes to the fallen climber.  |
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First and foremost, I wish Cohen the strongest recovery. Parents and Grandparents of young teens know 11 year olds need oversight in this activity. Wishing the best for Grandpa’s recovery as well. Hang in there. |
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I was in the area when the boy was being loaded into the EMS vehicle with the medics. The grandfather was walking behind the vehicle and told me that his “grandson was preparing to rappel and instead of removing his PAS, he disconnected or removed the anchor completely”. From what I was told by the grandfather, the boy was inexperienced and was rappelling without direct supervision at the anchor. I was very upset to hear the response as there are so many ways to have someone rappel safely if they are learning to rappel. That being said, simply lowering is the recommend choice at a single pitch crag. Really sad but I believe the boy will make a full recovery. I can’t imagine he would ever want to climb again :-( |
Alex Fletcherwrote: I love it when people post these simple ideas that function so brilliantly. I plan to start using this idea. Thanks Alex! |
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AV, What is your solution to solving the American health system? Free, nationalized healthcare? |
Marc801 Cwrote: No kidding. |
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Posted this earlier to IG: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0009.12647 The third bullet point in the summary pretty much nails it:
We have a Byzantine healthcare “market”. To be completely honest, I think that in addition to all its well-known problems around access, it’s also ripe with basically fraud. We just had a baby, and going through the itemized cost I found obscene charges and mis-codings which my insurer did not seem to care about. The same was true with surgeries and diagnostics I’ve had done—the prices are plucked from thin air, and even so, the providers tack on costs for services that sound plausible but aren’t real. (Eg a second “uncomplicated labor / delivery” days before our son was born or my partner went into labor.) Anyways, I know that’s a little off topic, but wanted to add some info. My heart goes out to the kid and his family and I chipped in a bit to help. I hate that our system seems to demand that, and the galling inequities that come from tapping social media to finance medical expenses, but… a kid decked. That’s just awful. |
FrankPSwrote: Yes At least some Americans are generous enough to help this family out Hoping for a full recovery |
