11yr old climber falls at Smith Rocks

Tradibanwrote:

I don’t read or look at Climbing rag, their writers and staff aren’t very knowledgeable and paywalled. So just tell me how grandpa messed up, typing it out might help you analyze deeper anyway.

I am going to man up and admit that Conrad is right. Fixed gear would not have prevented this accident, because accident happened due to grandpa's lapse in judgement.
In short - he setup TR anchor, then his grandkid went up. At that point grandpa decided to show/teach/practice rappelling off his own TR gear. Asked the kid to wait till he hikes/walks to the bottom to provide fireman's and take awesome photos. Kid, meanwhile unclips his pas, unclips TR anchor off bolts and ends up at the bottom of the climb.

So yeah, since there was no transition to lower/rappel, fixed gear would not have helped.

amariuswrote:

I am going to man up and admit that Conrad is right. Fixed gear would not have prevented this accident, because accident happened due to grandpa's lapse in judgement.
In short - he setup TR anchor, then his grandkid went up. At that point grandpa decided to show/teach/practice rappelling off his own TR gear. Asked the kid to wait till he hikes/walks to the bottom to provide fireman's and take awesome photos. Kid, meanwhile unclips his pas, unclips TR anchor off bolts and ends up at the bottom of the climb.

So yeah, since there was no transition to lower/rappel, fixed gear would not have helped.

Ok. Now ask yourself one question: Why did Cohen unclip himself AND the anchor?

amariuswrote:

I am going to man up and admit that Conrad is right. Fixed gear would not have prevented this accident, because accident happened due to grandpa's lapse in judgement.
…So yeah…fixed gear would not have helped.

Wut in tarnation? The two are not mutually exclusive. 

More and more I’m understanding why mystifying “accidents” occur. 

Tradibanwrote:

Ok. Now ask yourself one question: Why did Cohen unclip himself AND the anchor?

How does anyone manage to do something like this? That's hard to answer, but we all know it can happen.

My guess is that perhaps having an upper and lower anchor, and a part of it being transferred from one to the other, somehow a brain just decided it still had stuff to clean and unclipped the works. I also assume it was possible to be unweighted to do this. 

Brains are amazing at what they can do, including making "decisions" that aren't rational decisions at all. We just....do stuff. Most of the time, it doesn't matter at all when we're stoopud. But not with climbing. 

A contributing factor is being 11, imo. Still young enough for bad shit to be theoretical. I've met 40 year olds who were not yet mortal, too. Scary!

Yes, one should know how to rappel. But one should also know to use less risky options. And, when the riskier option is chosen? That should then be enough of an outlier that it prompts heightened alertness, and a wee bit of paranoia to be really sure it's all kosher.

Wishing a speedy recovery to the climber! 

Best, Helen

Andy Shoemaker wrote:

The specific image you re-posted is through closed chain links, which makes a single non-locker a go.  But with closed chain links obviously, whoever sets it up must untie at some point to thread the chains.

Why not just use the bight through the chains method, to set this up, same as you would for cleaning to lower, without ever needing to untie? Just a carabiner added in?

A key point has been missed so far. Grandpa was setting a TR from above, Cohen walked up to the top, and grandpa figured he might as well get some rappelling practice in before they TR the route. 

Fixed gear would not have helped, unless y'all's narrative has suddenly shifted to advocating that people TR through fixed gear. Why did he unclip everything and not just his PAS? You'd have to ask him. Lapses in judgement happen, and they happen more often in adolescents. It's just a tragic accident.

Read the article through a compassionate lens detached from your ego and this is nothing to argue about. I hope the kid recovers and has a rich, fulfilling life. 

amariuswrote:

I am going to man up and admit that Conrad is right. Fixed gear would not have prevented this accident, because accident happened due to grandpa's lapse in judgement.
In short - he setup TR anchor, then his grandkid went up. At that point grandpa decided to show/teach/practice rappelling off his own TR gear. Asked the kid to wait till he hikes/walks to the bottom to provide fireman's and take awesome photos. Kid, meanwhile unclips his pas, unclips TR anchor off bolts and ends up at the bottom of the climb.

So yeah, since there was no transition to lower/rappel, fixed gear would not have helped.

Fixed gear could have helped had the rope been placed through a closed ring system such as chain, rappel ring, or tightened (with a wrench) quick links.

The fallen climber would then not have been able to remove the anchor. Only the PAS.

Another valid way, would have been to rappel first. Removing the pas, then and there, then having the fallen climber only rappel not touching the anchor or PAS because it’s already clean. Walking around instead had some contribution.

I think there’s a multitude of things that can go wrong and mitigating every single one every single time is kind of unrealistic. We can only do our best. 

from the article:

 “If I could go back, I would’ve still had him rappel,” said Phillips. “But either I would’ve taken time to really remind him, ‘Only undo this one [the PAS],’ or have a second rope up there and belay him from above as he rappelled, or have another adult with me. Those are the three ways I think I could’ve mitigated the accident.”

And here is the photo of the anchor in question for those unwilling to go to the article.

Old lady Hwrote:

Why not just use the bight through the chains method, to set this up, same as you would for cleaning to lower, without ever needing to untie? Just a carabiner added in?

That method works great and is the recommended method when possible but most folks may agree that it still counts as “untying”

To answer your previous question also, I would not like to do this above mussy hooks unless they are opposite and opposed but they are not usually set up that way. 

Ok I’m dense.    But it seems to me regardless of whatever transitions did, or did not take place, if the anchor was set up as per several pics shown and discussed in this thread -— whether or not intermediate personal gear was inserted to take TR wear —-  the accident wouldn’t have happened.  

Therefore such discussions seem relevant to a thread such as this.    What am I missing?

Mark Pilatewrote:

Ok I’m dense.    But it seems to me regardless of whatever transitions did, or did not take place, if the anchor was set up as per several pics shown and discussed in this thread -— whether or not intermediate personal gear was inserted to take TR wear —-  the accident wouldn’t have happened.  

Therefore such discussions seem relevant to a thread such as this.    What am I missing?

You aren't missing anything.  If a climber threads a rope through welded links of chain and then adds some personal gear above this to redirect the rope off the chains they can then TR or rap or whatever they want with essentially no possibility that the rope could come out of the anchor system entirely.  This is a valid argument against the use of open system anchors like mussy's.  I think the numbers will show that far more accidents happen when the permanent gear is a only welded links (vs mussy's) due to the added complexity, overall, required for cleaning closed anchors.  Many adults make mistakes and fall during cleaning without the simplicity that mussy's allow.  This accident is the rare occasion where the issue was not a mistake in "transitioning from TR to rappel" or "cleaning". It was a tragic and sad but blatant error that would not have been prevented by an installed open anchor type and would have been prevented if the rope were threaded through welded links or wrench tight quicklinks.  

It's worth noting, the anchor pictured in the magazine article has only like 2 links of chain on each side.  So it's pretty much requisite climbers use their own equalized anchor.  And pretty impossible to prethread the chains and use the high redirect discussed earlier in this thread.  It maybe could be done, but likely the redirect biner would be jammed up at an angle and improperly loaded.  Higher chance it breaks and shock loads the bolts and maybe causes some other outlier failure method.

One method the grandfather didn't mention that maybe could have prevented this accident is if the adult had also been on rappel and gone down first.  He could have prerigged both climbers, adult decending first, child waiting near the anchor.  Once adult was weighted on rappel, but before leaving the child, he could have watched the kid remove his PAS and wait in the brake position.  Once the adult was on the ground he could transition to fireman's belay and the kid would have no gear manipulation to perform before starting the rappel.  Minimizing the possibility the kid unclips something he shouldn't as happened in this accident.

Many adults do this when rapping multipitch to allow a redundant safety check of both climbers before starting the "statistically dangerous" rappel.  Though many times the second person stays on a PAS so it would be a bit odd to have the second person, child in this case, to be only on rappel in the brake position (and essentially stuck there the whole time the rope is weighted by the first climber).

Andy Shoemakerwrote:

Many adults do this when rapping multipitch to allow a redundant safety check of both climbers before starting the "statistically dangerous" rappel.  Though many times the second person stays on a PAS so it would be a bit odd to have the second person, child in this case, to be only on rappel in the brake position (and essentially stuck there the whole time the rope is weighted by the first climber).

When stacking or pre-rigging rappels it is not odd to unclip the PAS while the 2nd rappeller waits there stuck to the rope. Is a safety feature. I do it all the time with at least one other following rappeller. Often two. Sometimes three. Removing everyone’s PAS simultaneously after complete checks of everyone’s proper rappel setup is a step I call “committing to the rope.”

There are arguments for and against this, but it leaves followers with nothing left to do except begin sliding down the rope. 

The leader needs to not unweight the rope until fully down the rappel and ready to give a firefighters belay. 

Followers begin rappelling when the rope comes loose and they hear a call. Usually the call is “Off Rappel” but I don’t like this phrasing and would like to come up with something better. 

Alex Fletcherwrote:

When stacking or pre-rigging rappels it is not odd to unclip the PAS while the 2nd rappeller waits there stuck to the rope. Is a safety feature. I do it all the time with at least one other following rappeller. Often two. Sometimes three. Removing everyone’s PAS simultaneously after complete checks of everyone’s proper rappel setup is a step I call “committing to the rope.”

There are arguments for and against this, but it leaves followers with nothing left to do except begin sliding down the rope. 

The leader needs to not unweight the rope until fully down the rappel and ready to give a firefighters belay. 

Followers begin rappelling when the rope comes loose and they hear a call. Usually the call is “Off Rappel” but I don’t like this phrasing and would like to come up with something better. 

We use "rope free" ... 

I use AAAAH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAAAAAuuuuughhhhhzzzzz

Alex Fletcherwrote:

When stacking or pre-rigging rappels …

I have not done that. And I’m no guide.

So I kinda think if I had partners that I thought needed that, should they even be in situations where that is needed?

Now, I know we are talking about really young kids. But, again, do they really need to be in situations where that sort of baby sitting is necessary?

Bill Lawrywrote:

I have not done that. And I’m no guide.

So I kinda think if I had partners that I thought needed that, should they even be in situations where that is needed?

Now, I know we are talking about really young kids. But, again, do they really need to be in situations where that sort of baby sitting is necessary?

Lots of very experienced climbers have fallen on account of botched rappel setups. Do you perform partner safety checks when leaving the ground? Redundancy is one of the basic, fundamental ways to add mitigate risk in high consequence activities. I dont know of another way to do redundant safety checks on a multipitch rappel other than pre-rigging all parties before the first person goes. If that qualifies as baby sitting to you then the majority of the climbing community worldwide is a bunch o babies. Please babysit me if we every climb together. Imma baby and want my climbing partners and I to look out for each other at every opportunity. 

Bill Lawrywrote:

I have not done that. And I’m no guide.

So I kinda think if I had partners that I thought needed that, should they even be in situations where that is needed?

Now, I know we are talking about really young kids. But, again, do they really need to be in situations where that sort of baby sitting is necessary?

Yes, you gotta let the babies fly some day, hopefully with good instruction.

Andy Shoemakerwrote:

Do you perform partner safety checks when leaving the ground?

I and my partners never have in over 45 years. We take responsibility for ourselves.

Andy Shoemakerwrote:

… Redundancy is one of the basic, fundamental ways to add mitigate risk in high consequence activities. …

Redundancy is worth considering. But if it is always above all else, multi-pitch is not the place to be.

Sometimes I climb with people who need that kind of redundancy. But not multi-pitch climb after multi-pitch climb. And definitely not on the most rewarding of objectives.

Marc801 Cwrote:

I and my partners never have in over 45 years. We take responsibility for ourselves.

Fair enough.  Out of sample size of 3 I am the weirdo- I'm perfectly content with that. I've read too many pages of Accidents in North American Mountaineering to not perform partner safety checks at every possible opportunity.  

It's statistically likely for one expert to be complacent on one occasion when you consider how many times climbers tie in on a daily basis. It's statistically much less likely, therefore less common for 2 experts to become complacent simultaneously. And since it takes only 5-10 seconds to check my partner and for them to check me I'm all about it.  We take responsibility for ourselves.

Marc801 Cwrote:

I and my partners never have in over 45 years. We take responsibility for ourselves.

I call BS….I get what your saying… it still sounds ridiculous 

looking after a partner is what climbers do

my life has been saved by my partner being observant…. Just saying

not trying to offend you

be safe out there 

Always check your partner.