That said, calling this accident preventable is an understatement. Hand lowering himself until he felt tension from the belay would have kept that guy from decking, plain and simple.
Edit: for clarity

I hope that if I ever blow it big I'm even half as lucky as this guy. Here's to being young and lucky!

That said, calling this accident preventable is an understatement. Hand lowering himself until he felt tension from the belay would have kept that guy from decking, plain and simple.

Edit: for clarity

Blowing it off is why Natasha Richardson died after a skiing fall.

Perhaps my assertion was misplaced. I had just intended to stress that the person getting dropped has a role in this that is often overlooked. It's easy to blame this on the failure of the belayer, but I see it as a mutual failure.

it is 100% the belayers fault if the following conditions are true.

Climber and belayer knew eachother's communcation system (no language barrier etc)

Climber didn't call off belay

Belayer didn't announce belay off.

it is 100% the belayers fault if the following conditions are true.

Climber and belayer knew eachother's communcation system (no language barrier etc)

Climber didn't call off belay

Belayer didn't announce belay off.

The climber should still ensure he is on belay before weighting the rope, so I don't see how this could be 100% the belayer's fault. In fact, I consider it to be nearly 100% the climber's fault. I don't know why the belayer took him off, but the climber should have been aware of it.

Jay

So if I take you off belay when you don't call for it and don't make sure you hear me, then you fall and die, its nearly 100% your fault?

The climber should still ensure he is on belay before weighting the rope, so I don't see how this could be 100% the belayer's fault. In fact, I consider it to be nearly 100% the climber's fault. I don't know why the belayer took him off, but the climber should have been aware of it.

Jay

Yes.

Jay

That's bullshit. As far as the belayer is/was concerned, the climber could have just as well fallen while climbing as fallen while lowering.

I agree that it is on the climber to ensure that he/she is safe, but I still think this was mostly the belayers fault. There is no reason he should have taken the climber off belay. If the climber is telling the truth, he stated that he did hold the belayers side of the rope and felt there was tension on the rope before leaning back to be lowered. Because he was around a corner and over a ledge, and they had a lot of rope drag, the climber felt the tension and mistook it for a belay.

Especially since there was poor communication, the climber should have remained on belay. I certainly have an expectation that my belayer will keep me on belay until I ask to be taken off belay.

Context, please. We are not talking about a belayer taking his partner off belay in the middle of a climb.

Jay

The belayer couldn't see the climber, nor had good communications with the climber. Therefore, the belayer could not see if the climber was still climbing or at the anchor. So really, as far as the belayer knew, he may as well have taken the climber off belay in the middle of the climb.

Oh good lord and butter. The blame here lies in both camps. For starters, neither one had a clue what they were doing.

Simply, the climber made assumptions, the belayer made assumptions. End result, the guy decked.

When you look at these accidents, the usually seem to happen at the anchor point. Personally once at the anchor I'm not committing to the system till I'm sure of whats going on below.

They both blew it.

it is 100% the belayers fault if the following conditions are true.

Climber and belayer knew eachother's communcation system (no language barrier etc)

Climber didn't call off belay

Belayer didn't announce belay off.

Oh good lord and butter. The blame here lies in both camps. For starters, neither one had a clue what they were doing.

Simply, the climber made assumptions, the belayer made assumptions. End result, the guy decked.

When you look at these accidents, the usually seem to happen at the anchor point. Personally once at the anchor I'm not committing to the system till I'm sure of whats going on below.

They both blew it.

What are we talking about here? I think accountability for an injured climber's circumstances and the roles/responsibilities of climbers/belayers are two different things. Certainly, they both screwed up. But, IMO, the party injured while participating in climbing activities is always 100% responsible for his or her situation. If you choose to climb, then you have either accepted the risks or are ignorant of them. Those risks include bad belaying.

This is something that the general public seems to get better than most climbers do. Though it's callous and insensitive to be sure, there's a measure of truth in the statement, "Serves him right for rock climbing."

Let's see how many one-stars this draws.

you should always be on belay till you call off or die ..... thats one of the cardinal rules of climbing ... unless ive just entered some alternate rc.com universe

its that simple IMO

IMO, the party injured while participating in climbing activities is always 100% responsible for his or her situation. If you choose to climb, then you have either accepted the risks or are ignorant of them. Those risks include bad belaying.

What are we talking about here? I think accountability for an injured climber's circumstances and the roles/responsibilities of climbers/belayers are two different things. Certainly, they both screwed up. But, IMO, the party injured while participating in climbing activities is always 100% responsible for his or her situation. If you choose to climb, then you have either accepted the risks or are ignorant of them. Those risks include bad belaying.

This is something that the general public seems to get better than most climbers do. Though it's callous and insensitive to be sure, there's a measure of truth in the statement, "Serves him right for rock climbing."

Let's see how many one-stars this draws.

The climber thought the belayer had asked if he was okay, not if he was off belay as a repeated query. He did not announce his descent before starting.

So let's say you are the climber in this situation. Accordingly, you take responsibility for the fall because you chose to climb with a bad belayer. Ok, I can get on board with this. But answer this (truthfully): you just hit the ground and you get up...are you pissed off at yourself, or are you mad at your belayer? I call bullshit at anyone who says that their immediate reaction would be to blame themselves and not their belayer.

...This is adding new information or new assumptions to the facts. If the belayer really did not know that the climber was at the anchors, then it would be an inexcusable mistake for him to take the climber off belay. Yet he did, so I suspect that the belayer did know that the climber was at the anchor. So the next question is, why would the belayer take his partner off belay at the anchor? If I had to speculate, I would say that he heard something from his partner that he interpreted as "off belay." If so, then this is another example why, if you plan to be lowered, you should not say anything when you get to the anchor, except "slack," if you need to clean the anchor, "take," and "lower." Any other communication (eg, "safe") is unnecessary, useless, and an invitation for miscommunication.

Jay

I tend to agree with you on taking responsibility for yourself, but "take" and "slack" are far too close phonetically to be easily interpreted . . .

Disregarding all of the arguments trying to place blame... :) Thank you for posting this. I take a lot of new climbers out and am BIG on safety. Mostly because as they've not been climbing or have only been climbing a few times, I consider them all 100% my responsibility. I sent this article to all of them so they can see why I force them all to use proper communication at all times. So this article combined with some of my other tactics will help keep everyone safe by showing a bad example.

One of my favorite things to do when someone is just starting a climb and they don't say climbing or on belay, is to sneak up behind them after they're about one foot off the ground and push them off. Lets em understand that there isn't anything stopping them from decking if they fall without telling me they're climbing.

Again, Kudos for posting.

Once last summer I was a participant in a situation, somewhat like this one, in which I was sport climbing in a group, belaying someone I'd not previously climbed with, and when she got to the top she said "off belay." Now this surprised me so I yelled up to her: "Did you say off belay? You want me to TAKE YOU OFF BELAY?" She confirmed that she did. I thought she must be setting up a rap. So I took her off, although a part of me thought it was a mistake to do so.

Then the nightmare happened: she yelled "take."

I don't want to prolong the story, so I'll just cut to the chase and say no disaster resulted. I started screaming at her that she wasn't on belay, she didn't fall, everything worked out fine. She hadn't meant to go off belay and she'd just said the wrong thing. My questioning hadn't woken her up enough to make her realize it.

She easily could have died. And in the discussion that might have followed here on rockclimbing.com I think most people would not have blamed me. But I never would have forgiven myself, because I had a feeling deep down that I should never have taken her off; I should have disobeyed the instructions, fed a bunch of slack and waited. This incident haunted me for months; sometimes I think I'm still not over it.

And it all would have been avoided if before she led off we'd talked about what she intended to do at the top.

I agree with all of that (except maybe the part about not carrying the rappel device...).

I think what held me back from asking "are you going to rappel?" is the same thing that led me to take her off belay against my own instincts: I didn't want to patronize her or act like I knew better than her. She sounded like she understood and knew what she wanted. Of course I now believe this was sheer stupidity and I'll never make that mistake again. It is better to risk angering your partner than to endanger him or her.

Both climbers were back this weekend, with faller's girlfriend who also climbs. Both men were able to pull the difficult overhang start that had stumped them before, and the faller completed the 5.9 route in good fashion. He wore a new climbing HELMET (head wound staples have dropped out already), and they have new webbing with carabiners for TR anchors. Both now know both common methods for rigging rim anchors, including equalizing.

.

So let's say you are the climber in this situation. Accordingly, you take responsibility for the fall because you chose to climb with a bad belayer. Ok, I can get on board with this. But answer this (truthfully): you just hit the ground and you get up...are you pissed off at yourself, or are you mad at your belayer? I call bullshit at anyone who says that their immediate reaction would be to blame themselves and not their belayer.