Ankle frature at Movement Boulder on Thursday night 12/26/24

A climber fractured her ankle in a lead fall. She had clipped just before going over a slight overhang. She took the fall and swung hard into the wall below. Sending well wishes to the climber, belayer, and helpers. 

Can't help but think that is the direct result of a shitty catch. Hope she makes a full recover and if there is a lesson to be learned that someone takes that to heart.

Side note - some years ago, maybe like 7 or 8, someone took a lead fall there and ended up dangling with a biner straight through the achilles. Shit was wild

Dane B wrote:

Side note - some years ago, maybe like 7 or 8, someone took a lead fall there and ended up dangling with a biner straight through the achilles. Shit was wild

I believe that person posted here.  Or maybe it was someone that took a 'liner through the thumb webbing?

Dane B wrote:

Can't help but think that is the direct result of a shitty catch. Hope she makes a full recover and if there is a lesson to be learned that someone takes that to heart.

Side note - some years ago, maybe like 7 or 8, someone took a lead fall there and ended up dangling with a biner straight through the achilles. Shit was wild

Every catch that stops you is a good catch, imo. So lets not shame her belayer. More people are probably dropped/injured by attempts at soft catches, imo.

Some catches are better than others YMMV.

hillbilly hijinks wrote:

Every catch that stops you is a good catch, imo.

not in my world. i like my lower extremities intact. this was a gym fall where there is a bolt every 5 feet, and the belayer should be shamed for directly causing the accident and inflicting harm upon another person. giving catches takes situational awareness and the ONLY reason to spike someone should be a direct result of keeping them from decking

hillbilly hijinks wrote:

Every catch that stops you is a good catch, imo. So lets not shame her belayer. More people are probably dropped/injured by attempts at soft catches, imo.

Some catches are better than others YMMV.

Sheesh, what a bad take.

I am not commenting directly at the scenario/belayer at hand here, but there is virtually no scenario where a catch that causes a broken ankle, foot, or leg is a good catch lol sorry, but any catch that is the cause of a sprained or injured ankle, leg, foot is a bad catch. Every catch that stops you is not a good catch. Let me give you an example; if the bolt is at my ankle on clean route (no ledge beneath) and my belayer takes in slack as I fall, resulting in an excessively hard impact, that is a bad catch regardless of if injury occurred or not.

Look, people mess up and I’m certainly not shaming this belayer, I’m sure they feel awful, but this should be a learning experience for them….if it was their fault. Additionally, if a climber was dropped or injured that, by definition, was not a soft catch. So, no, more people are not injured or dropped by soft catches.  

With that said, there are still scenarios where a perfectly fine catch still results in a climber being injured due to weird situations like landing with one foot in a hueco or pocket or crack and one foot out. These situations are typically at no fault of the belayer.

Dane B wrote:

not in my world. i like my lower extremities intact. this was a gym fall where there is a bolt every 5 feet, and the belayer should be shamed for directly causing the accident and inflicting harm upon another person. giving catches takes situational awareness and the ONLY reason to spike someone should be a direct result of keeping them from decking

Were you there? Did you see it happen? Have you talked to the climber or the belayer? I'm going to go with "no" because you don't even live in Colorado. 

It's so weird that you've come to this thread, insinuated this injury was the belayer's fault despite having no evidence of it, and then doubled down. As has been said by another commenter, this is such a poor take.  

Not that it matters but I do live in Colorado. Did you miss this part of the original post?

“She had clipped just before going over a slight overhang. She took the fall and swung hard into the wall below”

that has poor catch and belayers fault written all over it. Seen’t it many a time, and thus it is worth pointing out

I don't know the belayer but I do know the climber.  

If it matters, climber and belayer are of about equal weight. They did not know each other well or climb together often. The climber rarely takes a fall above a clip. She made it to the next bolt above the overhang but couldn't make the clip. Maybe the belayer sat back into the catch.  Maybe the falling climber locked her legs out straight or hit at a weird angle. There could have been a number of contributing factors. The climber was not interested in assigning blame. 

Dane B wrote:

not in my world. i like my lower extremities intact. this was a gym fall where there is a bolt every 5 feet, and the belayer should be shamed for directly causing the accident and inflicting harm upon another person. giving catches takes situational awareness and the ONLY reason to spike someone should be a direct result of keeping them from decking

Accidents happen. Hard catches don't regularly end up with people breaking bones.
Really calling to shame someone is out of line IMO. Hope thats not how you treat teaching moments in your day to day life when something doesn't go as planned, or an accident happens.
I think it a bit harsh to call the belayer terrible or something. God knows as a big human, folks are used to trying to give a soft catch for most partners, and can end up with me almost on the ground or them getting slammed into the wall/first draw. I don't shame them, I take time to explain what they could do better, etc etc.
Growth opportunities are dope to take advantage of when they arrive.

Belaying is an organic thing, and sometimes, shit happens, like a slip and there belayer has no time to react well. I just see no need to blast a human around something that can happen to anyone.
Hope the climber has a speedy recovery.

Belayer shaming, often by people with absolutely no actual idea about any of the details, is becoming a national climbing pastime.

I wasn't there, I don't know. 

WF WF51 wrote:

I wasn't there, I don't know. 

Whoa, is this an actual reasonable take on this app? What is the world coming to?!

Jeez people. Talk about Monday morning quarter backing with no facts, even for MP, wow. For some perspective, my four year old daughter rolled her ankle and fractured a bone in her foot just walking across the (carpeted) living room last week. Things like that just happen sometimes. Feet/ankles can be like that.

L Kap wrote:

... She made it to the next bolt above the overhang but couldn't make the clip. ...

Well, there it is. Climber's fault written all over it. And as a protein-starved vegetarian, she should have known better before charging up a big, burly, manly overhang. She could have just gone on a beef-intensive diet for a couple of weeks and come back when she was ready. With a little beef, she would have made that clip, no doubt.

Dane B wrote:

Not that it matters but I do live in Colorado. Did you miss this part of the original post?

“She had clipped just before going over a slight overhang. She took the fall and swung hard into the wall below”

that has poor catch and belayers fault written all over it. Seen’t it many a time, and thus it is worth pointing out

It's mentioned below your comment that the climber rarely takes falls above a clip. That tells me it's entirely possible it was as simple as an unfortunate landing by someone not used to taking lead falls. 

Regardless, all of this is just complete speculation so I'll agree to disagree with your assessment. 

Best wishes to the climber for a quick recovery.  

Patrik wrote:

Well, there it is. Climber's fault written all over it. And as a protein-deficient vegetarian, she should have known better before starting up a big, burly, manly overhang. She could have just gone on a beef-intensive diet for a couple of weeks and come back when she was ready. With a little beef, she would have made that clip, no doubt.

Shhhhh, Eric Marx might hear you.

Dane B wrote:

Can't help but think that is the direct result of a shitty catch. Hope she makes a full recover and if there is a lesson to be learned that someone takes that to heart.

Side note - some years ago, maybe like 7 or 8, someone took a lead fall there and ended up dangling with a biner straight through the achilles. Shit was wild

Ouch, this really doesn’t help me get over my fear of falling on lead. I’m surprised lead classes don’t focus more on how to provide the safest catch in different scenarios and way more on assessing risk for each fall point. Would love to take an advanced lead class that’s way more about falling and catching and weird scenarios, and rope management.

Alaina G wrote:

Ouch, this really doesn’t help me get over my fear of falling on lead. I’m surprised lead classes don’t focus more on how to provide the safest catch in different scenarios and way more on assessing risk for each fall point. Would love to take an advanced lead class that’s way more about falling and catching and weird scenarios, and rope management.

Despite a lot of media out there about "learning" to fall safely, the hard fact is that a fall can go sideways (literally) very quickly and cause a life-altering injury on impact. By life-altering, I am especially referring to ankle injuries which can be slow and difficult to heal and can seriously inhibit mobility for the rest of your life. Gym routes especially are not worth it

The safest fall is the one you don't take. Grabbing a draw or a jug on another route is perfectly acceptable. The next safest is on overhanging terrain with no obstacles, and the next safest after that is on less steep terrain with no obstacles. Past that you are looking for trouble if you fall and you'll find it soon enough. The newer volume-style holds in gyms are a major problem in this regard and oddly I am seeing little acknowledgment of this in the industry.

A safe landing is primarily the climber's responsibility since, absent major negligence, the laws of physics are pretty basic once a fall is in progress. Climbers need to think in advance about what the route might involve, what falling at any point on the route implies, and above all, they must make sure their legs and feet do not tangle with the rope in any way. The climber should always err on the side of extreme caution regarding body position in relation to the rope in the sub-20' zone. The worst outcome is of course an inverted landing since head and spinal injuries are the most serious of all.

The best insurance against falling injuries while roped climbing inside or out is high pre-clipping to start and generally not falling on lead below about 20 feet. Falls there risk hitting the floor, hitting your belayer, or having hard landings into the wall (or large holds) owing to a lack of rope stretch and high angular momentum. In this zone I strongly recommend not pushing it and grabbing draws or adjacent holds instead of falling. I also recommend redirect clips off to the side at the start to add a bit of rope drag that slows down a fall and helps keep the belayer out of the trajectory of the falling climber. Above 25 feet on steep obstacle-free climbing, the issue of falling is more a matter of trust in the system and one's belayer. Practicing falling here is generally okay though still requires close communication between climber and belayer. In outside climbing, where bolts can a bit more spaced, it's also critical that the protection at that 20 foot level is absolutely bombproof since a failure of what is typically the third piece will likely mean a groundfall or close to it. Quickdraws do and have come unclipped in that zone with scary consequences.

Personally I am always amazed at the casual approach many climbers take at the gym. Too often, I see them hitting the floor, getting clotheslined on low falls, hitting their belayers, swinging into adjacent features, falling while clipping, and more. Rarely is any of this the belayer's fault. Climbers should be in control while climbing, to the greatest extent possible, looking at falling as a last resort rather than a casual event, with a plan in place if a fall should occur.

Climbing Weasel wrote:

Whoa, is this an actual reasonable take on this app? What is the world coming to?!

A reasonable take would be to not even make a post...

Dane B wrote:

not in my world. i like my lower extremities intact. this was a gym fall where there is a bolt every 5 feet, and the belayer should be shamed for directly causing the accident and inflicting harm upon another person. giving catches takes situational awareness and the ONLY reason to spike someone should be a direct result of keeping them from decking

Sounds like you were there and know all about it. I think it's fair to say the none of us know the whole story.

Regardless, I've seen plenty of hard catches cause no harm though my statement is a little too facile and yes, belayers can do a bad job leading to injury, while stopping you short of the ground.

However, we've seen lots of drops lead to the worst possible outcomes, so really I am saying better to keep someone tight than be lackadaisical and giving too much slack. Decking is not much fun either and can be a known consequence of trying to give a soft catch from any number of errors by the belayer.

My bias betrays me however, as having been dropped and taken a 100' fall as a consequence I have my prejudice towards "just hold the damn rope" rather than play games with it.