Is Decking Bad?

I'm trying to judge if I'm just like crazy lucky or if we so often hear about the bad accidents that the self rescues and minor injuries just get swept under the rug and never get talked about.

Personally I've soft decked once and full on cratered 3 times... but somehow am still living to tell the tale. These have all been from 10+ feet with the most recent something like 25+ and I was out climbing less than a week later... so what gives? Am I just bouncy?

edit: 

Details around the **incidents**:

1. 2018 and I’d probably been trad climbing for all of 6 months; got on B3 in Red River Gorge and fell, ripping 2 pieces. Belayer hopped off the block; my ass touched the ground but I didn’t actually deck.

2. 2019 (?) I was soloing up the first 10ish feet of Maria in the Gunks to retrieve a rope someone pulled up too high. Slipped on a wet spot, fell, landed on my feet but went rolling. Walked out but hurt my ankle. 

3. 2022 FAing something at a new, still dirty, cliff in the Gunks. Got up 10-15 feet when a hold broke and I came off the wall; landed on my back in a laurel. Ruined my shirt but got back on to get the FA 10 minutes later (route aptly named Crumple Zone)

4. 2024 leading Jane Fonda in the Gunks, had sent it before and even whipped on the crux gear and the backup stuff under the roof… but that day for whatever reason everything pulled. Decked from about 25 feet; walked out and was climbing a week later.

maybe youre just a boulderer

you could be superhuman!

have you tried jumping out the window yet?

Keep trying! One of these times you won't be so lucky.

You should try to avoid falling to the ground when climbing.  From a stylistic point of view falling will prevent on-sighting or flashing a route; perhaps not ideal for maximizing your "cool points".  From an injury prevention perspective, falling to the ground from a climb increases your risk of physical injury.  Falling to the ground might also encourage psychological blocks that may make it harder for you to climb your hardest in the future due to mental barriers.  Unless you are bouldering decking is bad.  

Soft decking meaning you touch the ground on stretch/belayer getting pulled up? 

Cratering multiple times? Unless there's a very good reason, i.e. you love climbing scary headpoints, that seems like something to investigate and mitigate.

I say this with the genuine intention of trying to help you climb safer -- it's concerning that it's happened to you that many times and suggests that either:

1.  you're climbing way above your ability and falling before the 1st or 2nd bolt/piece you're able to place  
2. you have belayers who are giving you too much slack or do not know how to give a safe belay when the climber is still low to the ground or  
3. you're placing gear poorly and it's ripping out on you when you fall, leading to you hitting the ground

Decking like you're describing should not be a frequent thing at all. I would consider these 3 points and think about what the common thread is 

Costin Anghelwrote:

I'm trying to judge if I'm just like crazy lucky or if we so often hear about the bad accidents that the self rescues and minor injuries just get swept under the rug and never get talked about.

Personally I've soft decked once and full on cratered 3 times... but somehow am still living to tell the tale. These have all been from 10+ feet with the most recent something like 25+ and I was out climbing less than a week later... so what gives? Am I just bouncy?

This is either BS or you're climbing with belayers who don't know how to belay. There is zero excuse for what you describe. None.  Myself and 6 main climbing partners have never ever decked - that's collectively about 325+ years of climbing experience.  Chris S posted a great response - reread it until it makes sense to you.

People are getting mad at their own assumptions so I added some clarifications to the original post.

I’ve hard decked once (resulting in 3 vertebral compression fractures) and soft decked probably two or three times otherwise. This is over twenty-plus years of climbing. Shit happens, hopefully not too shitty.

The common thread based on your update is gear ripping. I'd spend some time really reviewing proper placement fundamentals and even consider some easy aiding to really drive home what good gear feels like. John Long's "Climbing Anchors" book has great photos and explanations of all of this stuff for cams, nuts, etc. 

Not implying you don't know how to place gear. I'm just saying that while it is lucky you haven't been injured, we can all always be better and improve our skills (me included)

Obviously the OP knows the answer to his own question.    The only thing worse about getting lucky with regard to bad falls, is bragging about it.

A new language has been discovered!

"People are getting mad at their own assumptions." 

". . . but that day for whatever reason everything pulled.

Is this a multiple-choice test?

Lucky and possibly brain injured, CTE is a bitch, stay safe.

Russ Keanewrote:

Obviously the OP knows the answer to his own question.    The only thing worse about getting lucky with regard to bad falls, is bragging about it.

I think it’s quite good to get lucky. It’s also good to learn lessons and to know that we were only saved by chance.

If I have to pledge something here though, I would attest that decking should be avoided.

Costin Anghelwrote:

People are getting mad at their own assumptions so I added some clarifications to the original post.

This is a great response.  I may use it in the future.  Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to apply here.
I didn’t really detect any anger in the previous responses and it seems to me that their advice is still valid. The further clarification did not really move the dial.

What exactly are you looking for in terms of responses?   Tips on how to avoid deck #5 , a reevaluation of the statistics of injuries, validation of your apparent resilience, or something else ?  

Otherwise the simple answer to your thread question is, “Yes”.  Avoid it like the plague.  Case closed.  A potential lifelong debilitating injury is nothing to take lightly.  

Decking is fine and dandy unless you get a career-ending injury, end up paraplegic, or die. 

To quote Oscar Wilde (in The Importance of Being Ernest), "To lose one parent...may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”    To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to have one piece of gear rip may be regarded as a misfortune, to have both the gear and the backup pieces rip looks like carelessness.  Item #4 is a warning. I'm leaning towards crazy lucky.
   

Cosmic Hotdogwrote:

The common thread based on your update is gear ripping. I'd spend some time really reviewing proper placement fundamentals and even consider some easy aiding to really drive home what good gear feels like. John Long's "Climbing Anchors" book has great photos and explanations of all of this stuff for cams, nuts, etc. 

Not implying you don't know how to place gear. I'm just saying that while it is lucky you haven't been injured, we can all always be better and improve our skills (me included)

FYI… Long and Gaines have just updated “Climbing Anchors”. Make sure you get the 2024 edition for the latest in anchor philosophy, techniques, and terminology. 

I honestly don’t mean this as snark. You’re 29, you won’t be so quick to bounce back from things as you age. 

Hey Costin, knowing you a little bit I'm not sure if you're just trying to rile people up, which could be hilarious in it's own right. But some advice from a fellow climber who appreciates the edgier side of climbing:

I had as near a death experience as you could possibly have on Bone Hard(without actually being injured or dying), in my gumby headpointer days. I placed a horrific micro cam in the seam before the pins. I was inexperienced with micro gear, just learning to headpoint, and rationalized the piece away by thinking "It's R-rated, this is the part you don't fall in without experiencing serious physical injury." I slipped getting to the pins, and the cam did not hold at all, which had me flying toward the ground from 40 or so feet, ready to ping-pong off some sharp flakes and into an even deeper ditch at the base of the climb. I'm sure it would have been life-altering or potentially-ending injuries. I actually had the experience of my life flashing before my eyes. The hex-shaped piece of metal at the base of the dragonfly cam lodged into the seam as it ripped, essentially "nutting" itself in place and saving my life. The cam was destroyed and I had to hammer it out of place. I still have it.

That caused me to re-evaluate my entire approach to headpointing and dangerous climbing in general, never settling for subpar gear. It was a truly eye-opening fall. I came back to the route two years later and found so many bomber pieces in the seam I couldn't believe I almost let myself die on it two years prior. I've still taken some mildly-ankle-breaking falls since then, and other falls that weren't particularly pretty but also weren't particularly unsafe. I haven't decked ever, personally.

I say this out of pure love, a 25 foot fall off Jane Fonda's directly onto your head, helmet or not, would be certain death. Writing the experience off as "for whatever reason all the gear pulled" is a dangerous attitude to bring into the future. The gear pulled for very specific reasons, either they're bad placements and you should re-evaluate, they're good placements that you placed poorly, they're bad placements which appear good, or they're placements which are only good when placed hyper-specifically, so much so that it might not be reliably repeatable on route. It's on you to figure that out and prevent it from happening in the future, because you have a family and you're not the only victim of a poor decision making process. Friendly advice from somebody in the same boat as you.