Just spoke with Trevor's roommate. Trevor is still in critical condition. He broke his C2 vertebra. He came out of a coma last night and was moving all limbs but they put him back into a drug induced coma. Claire broke her arm with the force of his fall, and has other minor injuries. She went home last night.

Not sure about the details of exactly what went wrong. He was wearing a helmet, which apparently was cracked. Probably saved his life though.

Was it a meteor-style helmet that's meant to break?

Inexperienced eader fell on the second pitch, pulled his only cam, hit the belayer, knocking her unconscious. He continued falling further, the belay anchor (one cam, one nut), failed. He continued falling 120' to the ground, as his unconscious belayer did not arrest the rope. If the rope had stopped or jammed in her belay device, she would probably have fallen to the ground as well.]

This is from SuperTopo:

finally got to talk to Claire tonight to get the real story so... here it goes.

The two were on Captain Hook. They had finished the first pitch and had started up the second. Claire was belaying from the ledge atop the first pitch. The anchor consisted of one nut (size unknown) and a #3 BD cam. The anchor was skimpy because Trevor wanted to conserve gear for the next pitch. He began the second pitch of which the first 20 or so feet was unprotectable (at least with the gear they had). After this section, Trevor placed a #1 BD cam and proceeded to climb above it. He complained of some difficulties with the climbing and suddenly pitched off backwards. He came tight to the #1 which he was roughly 5 feet above. The cam pulled and he continued falling backward, now head-first, toward the belay. Claire locked off the rope through her ATC and braced inward against the wall to arrest the fall. Trevor hit Claire causing her to slam into the wall leading to fractures of her cheek bone, arm and wrist. Claire also was knocked unconscious at this point. Trevor continued his fall and as the rope came tight through the anchor, the two pieces failed. Luckily for Claire, she had collapsed onto the ledge when she passed out. Her unconscious state also led to a relaxed grip on the rope. Thus, as Trevor continued falling, Claire remained on the ledge despite the anchor blowing. Had she not been knocked out, she would have certainly kept a tight hold on the brake and undoubtedly would have been pulled off the ledge into a fall with Trevor. Sadly, under these circumstances, there was virtually nothing that would have kept Trevor from decking but Claire somehow escaped the same fate.

Trevor was wearing a helmet and this surely saved his life. As he fell head-first for nearly 120 feet, he hit his head several times and broke his helmet. He also, as mentioned before, broke his neck. He'll be in a brace to immobilize his neck for 3 months. The doctors are surprised, however, at how quickly he is recovering and said he may be released as early as Tuesday, a short hospital stay for such an injury in my opinion. The blood clot on his brain is being monitored and has not grown since yesterday. This will obviously need to be continuously monitored.

He is also alert and talking so it appears that the likelihood of permanent brain damage is minimal.

Claire is at home and in good spirits. She was her normal cheery self on the phone though notably shaken when she was describing the scenario to me. She'll need some re-constructive surgery on her face from the fractured cheek. She also, if the initial injuries weren't enough, suffered numerous contusions from some very sizable hail which began to fall during a nasty storm that rolled in shortly after the incident. She was stranded on the ledge for approximately two hours before she was rescued and unable to find any shelter from the elements.

We all hope for a speedy recovery for both of them.

A big thanks goes out to all of the climbers/SAR members who assisted in their rescue!! The first two to find Trevor at the base happened to be EMTs and jumped right into action stabilizing Trevor and orchestrating his extraction. There were a number of others who helped to carry them off the mountain on the litters which is no easy task. Also, a special thanks goes out to Ryan Moore (sp?) who hiked back in the the route to retrieve their gear and Claire's car which he then drove down the mountain to Riverside County Hospital where the two had been airlifted.

Re: Suicide 100'er Sep 1, 2008, 12:05am PT
Author:
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
From: Livermore, CA
my be

This is from SuperTopo:

The anchor consisted of one nut (size unknown) and a #3 BD cam. The anchor was skimpy because Trevor wanted to conserve gear for the next pitch.

Here's another interesting observation from SuperTopo:

Finally, after thinking in detail about the scenario Llama described, it seems to me the only way this could have happened is if Claire were belaying Trevor "redirected"*....

If so, perhaps this is further evidence that using a redirected belay to belay a leader is a Bad Idea.

I think that's a good question and a good discussion, but can we move it to another thread so that we don't muddle up the injury and accident report?

I agree that a 2 piece gear anchor is never a good idea. My question is why did 3 placements fail? (the #1 cam placed on the climb and the 2 piece anchor) Especially since claire (i don't know her, but from what people say, she sounds solid) probably checked those pieces at the belay.

I know that this is a new leader, but still I'd have hoped when I was a new leader that by the time I was leading things that i might fall on, at least 1 out of 3 of my pieces would have held. Maybe i was being too optimistic then.