Stuck climber super crack buttress

Happened on 11/8 in the afternoon and saw rescue ops happening around 11pm when driving past. Anyone know what Happened? 

Does the rescue team get to claim the stuck climber as booty?

Someone got there knee stuck near the top of Amaretto Corner (p1) and the rescue left some pretty significant damage. If you couldn’t get your knee in the 4’s crack you sure can now!

San Juan County SAR responded and tried all the classic tricks to get the knee out to no avail. Because nothing was working they had ended up breaking the rock by drilling it out. Climber was fine and refused further treatment.

At least they didn't grease the rock. . .

How??? Unbelievable. 

Hopefully said individual is embarrassed.

Brutal! I heard a story of this happening on Castleton a few years ago. 

I've gotten my knee stuck on several occasions, thankfully never for more than fifteen minutes. There's nothing quite like it to dredge up a primordial sense of desperation. 

For SAR to decide to break the rock shows that the climber's knee must have swelled something fierce. I'm glad the climber escaped long-term harm.

 The only thing I hope is that s/he is grateful (not embarrassed) enough to send an appropriate donation to the SAR team.  

F r i t zwrote:

For SAR to decide to break the rock shows that the climber's knee must have swelled something fierce. 

This is normally what happens. The popular method today is to medicate the climber for swelling, pain, and mental state. Then slip their knee out. Unfortunately on this occasion they were extremely stuck. Also drilling out the rock was not fast. It still took several hours.

edit to add: the climber was on TR

Put some dubstep on and Devin would of gotten those holes drilled and the climber out in under a minute… 

on top rope…. Yikes…. 

Thanks for getting the rock destroyed! 

grug gwrote:

Thanks for getting the rock destroyed! 

Yeah, next time they should amputate the climbers leg...? 

Don't worry dude, there's still plenty of #4 cracks in the desert for you to go and get your own knee stuck in. Don't be so selfish.

I hope the climber had the decency to shit their pants too!   The bar has been set, after all.

Dirtbag Betawrote:

Yeah, next time they should amputate the climbers leg...? 

Don't worry dude, there's still plenty of #4 cracks in the desert for you to go and get your own knee stuck in. Don't be so selfish.

Amputation is too far. But they clearly could have pulled harder on the climber to remove the stuck leg. 

I've never gotten my leg stuck in the offwidths ive climbed and never will - its not that hard. Offwidth is very hard, but not getting stuck seems to be successful for 99% of people. 

For real, grug?  They clearly could have pulled harder?  And l hope you havent jinxed yourself!

For starters, for a little background on where your armchair judgement is coming from, g, please share with the group if 'yes' you are, or 'no' you are not on a SAR team.

Before any more debate - Is there a picture of the rock damage? 

I’m really sorry that any climber had to go through this ordeal. And to anyone who ends up needing a rescue because they got stuck in an offwidth: please don’t feel ashamed, even if it’s only human to feel that way. Nobody wants or plans for this kind of thing to happen. But just like the countless dumb mistakes every one of us has made and sometimes paid for, $hit happens. Let the public shaming roll off your back, and please don’t let it weigh you down.

I also don’t think I’ve ever seen a truly “technical” postmortem from a first-person perspective in a situation like this. I have my own theories, but nothing I’m confident enough to state, esp. about a specific situation. I have seen people involved in accidents or rescues share their experience by breaking down what happened, what might have prevented it, and what could have helped once things went wrong. Sometimes laying it all out is one way to process it and move on.

To be clear I have nothing but respect and admiration for SAR and also have sympathy for the victim. The selfish reaction feels similar to that of folks upset when climbs around sacred sites are removed, or when areas are closed for nesting… just go climbing one of the other 7 million fucking cracks and recognize how lucky and privileged we are to exist!

I've led that one a couple times, great climb but I always had to pull on a cam passing the roof. Looks like there may be a new foothold. That is some very skilled drilling next to a knee. Kudos to the SAR crew.

A couple years back at the same wall I had to help a girl unstick her knee from the 5.8 Twin Cracks route. She was leading and had been stuck for half an hour when we walked by on our way out. She was hanging below her stuck knee and in pretty bad shape as you can imagine.   I led up over her body to the anchor then lowered down and built some aiders from slings on my cams so she could stand up. 

Getting her weight off the knee was only the first step. I'd brought up a knife, water and suntan lotion but nothing helped. She was trying to be brave but the pain was bad. There was only one other party at the wall and I realized either I got her out or she'd be waiting hours in the dark for SAR to show up. She insisted that her knee went in from below, but I thought it might get larger above. We spent half an hour messing around getting nowhere.

I was straddling her from behind and asked if I could try a brute force pull upward. I told her it would hurt and might rip her spandex tights but she said she didn't care. Finally, that worked. We became friends after that day and started climbing together. That morning she had led Incredible Hand Crack with 3 yellows. And led Scarface a day later.

This is her stuck, with me on top at the anchor.

Back on the ground, me pointing at her knee.

Bottom line, even if top roping, always carry a couple cams so you have something better than a fist jam to pull on. I've been briefly stuck 3 times, but always had either a cam to pull on, or a strong belayer to lift me out. The Leavitation knee jam works great, but that is precisely when you can accidentally slip down and get stuck.

Sam Baggedwrote:

To be clear I have nothing but respect and admiration for SAR and also have sympathy for the victim. The selfish reaction feels similar to that of folks upset when climbs around sacred sites are removed, or when areas are closed for nesting… just go climbing one of the other 7 million fucking cracks and recognize how lucky and privileged we are to exist!

I can sort of understand where the selfish reaction comes from, because the crucial difference between chiseling somebody’s knee out and chiseling somebody’s knee *in* is a question of intent, and of who determined the “necessity”.

To illustrate the point, consider @mark webster’s story. What if instead of having SAR onsite, it was just Mark and his partner, and they happened to have a drill in the truck. Do we as a community trust them to make the best decision for both the subject and the shared resource? If not, why not? At what level is damage to the shared resource unacceptable to save a life? What if events like this keep happening? Would SAR be justified in modifying *all* knee-sized cracks prophylactically so that the drilling is not done while somebody’s leg is under threat?

To be super clear, I have no special qualms with the tactics SAR used in this case. But it’s worth remembering that these things are on a continuum.

Petsfed 00wrote:

I can sort of understand where the selfish reaction comes from, because the crucial difference between chiseling somebody’s knee out and chiseling somebody’s knee *in* is a question of intent, and of who determined the “necessity”.

To illustrate the point, consider @mark webster’s story. What if instead of having SAR onsite, it was just Mark and his partner, and they happened to have a drill in the truck. Do we as a community trust them to make the best decision for both the subject and the shared resource? If not, why not? At what level is damage to the shared resource unacceptable to save a life? What if events like this keep happening? Would SAR be justified in modifying *all* knee-sized cracks prophylactically so that the drilling is not done while somebody’s leg is under threat?

To be super clear, I have no special qualms with the tactics SAR used in this case. But it’s worth remembering that these things are on a continuum.

I'd shoot El Capitan with a nuke to save the life or limb of a friend or loved one. Nothing is more precious than human life. 

How many ton of rock were displaced to pave the parking lot below Supercrack Buttress just so we could pack in more sprinter vans?

We're debating where drilling < 1ft² of rock to potentially save someone's life is justified? 

What have we become?