Best way to take a grounder?

Sorry if this kind of a morbid question, but here goes: Assuming a flat landing and the ability to twist in the air to fall as you want, what would be the best way to take, for example, a 30 or 40 foot grounder?

I always assumed I would try to tuck my arms over my head and bounce off my side, but it seems a lot of people recommend always trying to hit feet first. Would the answer be different for an even longer fall?

Knock on wood, but if ever did happen to me, I'd probably fall on my head while trying to decide between the two so I'd appreciate some thoughts on this.

Is it a dumb question because there wouldn't be enough time or ability (as gear pulls and redirects your fall, etc) to really have any say in the matter?

Best way to take a grounder, hmmm

Well I believe the best way is NOT to take one. But hey that is just me.

one second of free fall equals 16 feet. 2 seconds of free fall equals 64 feet. Not likely you'll have much choice/time. But, if you do, legs, feet, ankles kind of dispensable. Head, heart, lungs etc, not so much. I witnessed and rescued a fifteen footer. Butt and hand contacted ground first. Two crushed vertibrae and shattered wrist. 16 hour rescue.

Go for the feet if possible or place some gear.

Yes, sacrifice the extremities to save your torso & squash. Fractures of the calcanei (heels), tibial plateaus (knees), and femurs are no joke and may land you in the surgical ICU for a while. However, you are more likely to survive these injuries than if you were to land in a way that directly loaded your chest, belly, pelvis, head, or neck.

Use your legs to absorb some of the initial impact energy. That is, land with the knees and hips slightly bent rather than locked, and try to ROLL AWAY from the impact. Using your muscles to absorb some of the hit and redirect the energy by rolling away is the best way to go about it. Please don't go experimenting.

Trivia: a fall of 5 stories (roughly 50ft) has a 50% likelihood of killing a person.

I would agree with what is said so far on saving internals. I have been "falling" ever since learning to skateboard. One of the main things that separates the ones that go big from the other is the ability to "bail" if going big doesn't work. I think it works the same for climbing. I have been climbing for a few years and have learned to apply the same falling technique to bouldering/climbing with ground fall. It is where you land on your feet [preferably somewhat balanced] and slowly cushion the shock and roll. It worked for many years until I finally landed unbalanced and cracked my fibula. I landed unbalanced because I have always chosen to push myself off when I knew I was going to fall, this time I popped off. Now falling isn't an option.

Land on feet, but don't absorb the fall evenly on both legs, let one collapse at a greater rate, so you roll onto your side. Your side can absorb quite a hit and the spine is less exposed, your arm can help cushion your rib cage, and your face and back of head are more protected.

use a crashpad.

Christian,
With no disrespect intended to those who responded to your posting, I know a little about your question. I have the unfortunate distinction of having taken a ground fall from the top of the Checkerboard Wall in Estes Park. The distance from the belay to the ground is @65ft. Based on my experience, I do not believe that a falling climber generally has the capasity to make rational decisions about posture upon impact. I was very lucky to get away with four broken ribs, two broken calcani, broken right leg, and broken right talus. This was ten years ago. I have since recovered to only suffer a significant loss of mobility in my right ankle and soreness after hard workouts. I was very lucky to survive!

The bottom line, IMHO, is that if you think you're going to significantly control your impact, or the consequences thereof, you are living in fantacy land. Perhaps this may be a bit different for you boulderers, but my best advice is...don't do it!

Do what every other American does & take it up the

ALWAYS try to land on a cheerleader.

Well thanks for all the gallows humor but believe it or not it was actually was a serious question and no I don't intend to experiment hehe. Just a natural question that came to mind when trying harder (for me) trad routes. If it's not obvious from the ground I try to get beta on the what the pro is like first.

It also occured to me that by the time I realized the gear had ripped I'd have even less time to move around and maybe an even crappier starting position (regular fall position) from which to try to get oriented. On the one Indian Creek grounder I saw pictures of, the guy only managed to turn on to his side from about 30 feet after rippping two pieces and walked away basically unscathed.

Later on found this on the Internet:

wikihow.com/Survive-a-Long-…

Confirms a lot of the good advice given here.

There's also a brilliant tip...

about having a parachute.

The obvious answers aside, I think it depends on your idea of best. Best survival would be to take it onto your legs and away from your vitals as best as possible. As far as most pleasant death, well, I've been given the advice "fall head first"

That said you probably wouldn't have alot of control in a blown anchor/free fall/tumble situation. However, I find it more likely that human error would leave you unclipped and you would fall while attempting to sit in your harness or something along these lines. I know someone this happened to in a gym setting during staff maintenance: top of the climb to inspect anchors, thought she was clipped in, leaned back and free fell. She had the ability to grab the TR and this directed her body to take the fall onto her legs. The worst was a sprained wrist and rope burned hands.

So, granted this was a pretty nice landing and only 9 meters, but my strategy would be to grab rope/gear/anything I could to get my momentum upright and try to take in on my legs.

Entertaining topic.

My suggestion would be to spend time researching how to properly use trad gear rather than trying to figure out how to best take a grounder! Though that's just me, to each their own.

Wear a haul bag full of shit. I took a 150 free fall after my rappel failed. I remember seeing green grass, blue sky, green grass, blue sky...then I landed on my back on a ledge big enough for three tents before being pitched off of that due to my momentum. I was conscious enough to see the rope dangling next to me when I landed and grabbed it and hung on for dear life. I stopped before hitting the ground again but not without a broken heel and rope burns almost to the bone on 9 fingers and my right arm. The haul bag took all the impact and since it was overhead I had no neck injury.

I'm with Stu on this subject. All of this speculation is a waste of time. I hit the deck from almost forty feet up, while freesoloing, and there was no time to orient anything except to push away from the wall so that I didn't snag a foot and get inverted. Beyond that, you just hope for the best.

I was fortunate that the ground descended downward from the base of the cliff, so I tumbled and absorbed some of the shock. Had the ground been flat, I probably would have sustained injuries similar to Stu's. I got away with a compressed lumbar. It could have been much worse. At any rate, focus on prevention, because you won't be a happy camper if it happens to you.

BTW, How's it going, Stu? I haven't seen you in years. The last time I saw you was right after you and Derek did Stratosfear. Sorry to hear about your accident.

Look up Parachute Landing Fall. From wikipedia, the source of all knowledge:

A Parachute Landing Fall is a safety technique devised to reduce the incidence of injury for those deploying a parachute.

A PLF distributes the landing shock along the five points of contact: 1) balls of feet, 2) side of calf, 3) side of thigh, 4) side of hip, and 5) side of back ("push-up muscle"). During a PLF, the jumper's chin is tucked, and the risers are grasped in an arm-bar protecting the face and throat and the elbows tucked into the sides to prevent injury. The PLF is executed in one of six directions (left front, left side, left rear, right front, right side, right rear), depending on the direction of drift of the jumper, terrain, wind, and oscillation. With repeated practice PLFs into a sawdust pit from an approximately 1-meter platform, parachutists can learn to automatically make make smooth PLFs with a reflex action. Experienced paratroopers can naturally assume a PLF position when taking an accidental fall and have reduced or prevented injuries.

I have two friends who have been through military parachute training and subsequently took sizeable grounders while climbing. The first took about a 65 footer onto flat ground and cracked two vertebrae, and was climbing again in 6 months. He said as soon as he realized he would be taking the grounder he immediately set up to PLF, and says it probably saved his life.

The second friend didn't believe that the first would have had his wits about him enough to PLF, as many of you say that a person wouldn't. However, he then took a 25 foot grounder onto a flat frozen river while ice climbing and said that he did the exact same thing - he performed a PLF, and he walked away and climbed later that day.

Not my personal experience, but two friends who had both been trained to PLF, and who both say it saved them injury and maybe saved the life of the first. Both had practiced the PLF many times in their training, all just from a 3 foot platform, but they both said that when they were falling it's just how they naturally reacted. Food for thought...

Mark McCartan wrote:Look up Parachute Landing Fall. From wikipedia, the source of all knowledge: A Parachute Landing Fall is a safety technique devised to reduce the incidence of injury for those deploying a parachute. A PLF distributes the landing shock along the five points of contact: 1) balls of feet, 2) side of calf, 3) side of thigh, 4) side of hip, and 5) side of back ("push-up muscle"). During a PLF, the jumper's chin is tucked, and the risers are grasped in an arm-bar protecting the face and throat and the elbows tucked into the sides to prevent injury. The PLF is executed in one of six directions (left front, left side, left rear, right front, right side, right rear), depending on the direction of drift of the jumper, terrain, wind, and oscillation. With repeated practice PLFs into a sawdust pit from an approximately 1-meter platform, parachutists can learn to automatically make make smooth PLFs with a reflex action. Experienced paratroopers can naturally assume a PLF position when taking an accidental fall and have reduced or prevented injuries. I have two friends who have been through military parachute training and subsequently took sizeable grounders while climbing. The first took about a 65 footer onto flat ground and cracked two vertebrae, and was climbing again in 6 months. He said as soon as he realized he would be taking the grounder he immediately set up to PLF, and says it probably saved his life. The second friend didn't believe that the first would have had his wits about him enough to PLF, as many of you say that a person wouldn't. However, he then took a 25 foot grounder onto a flat frozen river while ice climbing and said that he did the exact same thing - he performed a PLF, and he walked away and climbed later that day. Not my personal experience, but two friends who had both been trained to PLF, and who both say it saved them injury and maybe saved the life of the first. Both had practiced the PLF many times in their training, all just from a 3 foot platform, but they both said that when they were falling it's just how they naturally reacted. Food for thought...

I can't speak for Stu, but I am not suggesting that you can't have your wits about you. I was aware enough to push away from the wall. Also, falling in a controlled sky jump is different than in a climbing fall. Skydivers have lots of time to prepare for their landings, and, when base jumping, it is all about the landing. When you are climbing, your attention is devoted to making movements that will keep you on the wall, so when you fall, you are likely not to be fully prepared for it and in the proper orientation. And if you are preoccupied with how you will fall, then you won't be focused on climbing. The two are very different.

The second friend had his tool rip unexpectedly while he was placing an ice screw, he wasn't prepared for it or oriented at all, but he says that he reacted the same way regardless, kicking out from the ice, landing on his feet and doing a PLF.

Obviously climbing falls and parachuting falls are quite different, but the actual method of landing with a PLF works very well to prevent injury in a long fall. Both friends were trained to PLF so it became a natural reaction for them when they fell, not something they had to think about. I think there is at least some anecdotal evidence, in the form of my friend's stories, that a climber can PLF after an unexpected fall and it may reduce their injuries.

I will agree with you in that any preventative training is better than not having it. More technique is always better, IMO. The problem is that this type of training is expensive and extensive - maybe to the degree that most climbers wouldn't bother with it.

True

Been climbing 35 years and I believe the PLF is quite worthwhile learning, and does not take expensive training. My jump instructor had ridden a double streamer into the ground and lived to jump again. I fell off many bouldering problems without injury before the advent of pads due to the shock-absorbing fold-up & roll you do in the PLF. I am confident that the only times I injured myself bouldering was when I was unable to perform a good PLF due to weird and uncontrolled body attitudes upon returning to terra firma. Only twice: broken calcaneous and sprained ankle. I have hit the ground so hard from 20' people thought it was gunfire. It hurt but I was uninjured.

Practice of the PLF takes maybe 5-10 hours off a table onto grass or sand before the principles are ingrained in the muscle-brain memory.

Worth looking into. Also just avoiding bouncing...