This definitely an auto-belay accident. Denying this is like saying Lynn Hill's accident wasn't a rappelling accident, as she never actually did get on rappell...

I think this was an auto belay accident. It's not 100% clear and never will be but I think her intent was to use the auto belay, since she let go at the end. The flaw is that it's possible to forget to clip in.

The gym I go to has 6 auto belays and never heard of any issues. Almost all the routes that are toprope-able can be done on AB, which means that your proposed gate would have to be lowered by non-AB parties, so a second place is needed to clip the AB's twist lock biner into. The AB can be pulled on a rail to position it by the finishing hold of the route you're jumping onto, so not sure how it could work in a case when you have 30 feet of wall where one can start a route.

If someone is going to drive to work, but forget to get in the car and walk out into the street and get hit by a bicycle, would you also characterize that as a car accident? Their intent was to drive teh car....


ps, Curt is right about Lynn Hills accident. She wasn't rapping, she was incorrectly tied in, just like what occurred to John Long except he was in a gym. If that's not a wake up call to the rest of us gumbys: then I got nothing else to say.

Regards to all

You're right, the gate solution wouldn't work with that setup. But to me it sounds like the gym takes a safety risk in order to save some money. To me the obvious answer is for the gym to stop being cheap and instead fix the autobelays in place, and maybe buy a couple more if they want to cover the whole wall.

Is it possible to put a colored sheath on the first few feet of the cable [ biner side ] so that the climber would always see that color. Once they don't a neuron may fire and maybe trigger a thought.

That's too complicated IMO. You're asking to have a dedicated area for autobelays, and for each piece of hardware only to cover a couple of routes instead of a dozen. Those AB-s aren't cheap.

I think it is clear beyond all reasonable doubt that

a) the lady's intent was to climb with an autobelay, which she didn't clip in to
b) these accidents happen too often

In a way these accidents have much in common with rappelling/lowering accidents, which also happen regularly and continuously, even though everybody is well aware of the risks. There is a big difference, though. One accident happens to people climbing outside, on their own accord. The other accident happens in a commercially run gym, where a high safety standard is required.

You don't see routes with big ledges half-way up, no runout bolting, and no trad in climbing gyms, so it would make perfect sense to eliminate the clear risk with autobelays as well.

I have failed to clip in twice during training sessions while running laps, but the problem was the lack of self-check that I always do outdoors. Changing the way I think about indoor climbing has resulted in no failures to clip in since then.

I am not sure I understand why you think applying the same criteria for responsibility for indoors and outdoors is inappropriate, but I may be mis-reading your post.

Auto-belay gate.

Two lower slings attach to the wall, upper attaches to the auto-belay biner. Hard to start without recognizing that the gate is still in the way. Once detached it lays on the floor.

And who clips the thing back, after the climb is done? The climber? Then you are running into the same problem as before. A climber did not hang this banner back, maybe the gym was busy and there was someone ready to climb right away, and couple steps down, the next climber, used to the visual clue, forgot to clip into autobelay...

I don't understand. If the climber did not clip the carabiner back into the top of that gate, wouldn't the autobelay retract and pull it up to the ceiling? It looked to me that the bottom two legs of the "gate" were attached to the floor (or lower wall) and the apex of the "gate" is what was used to hold down the autobelay carabiner.