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majid_sabet
Feb 18, 2014, 1:20 AM
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Michael v d Ham, 20, who had been taking pictures moments before the accident, said he was at the top of the cliff when Williams fell. “As I understand it, it was a fairly new rope so it went through the system quite quickly. The guy belaying below had to let go because of the pain.”
http://www.iol.co.za/...k-accident-1.1648475
my $0.02, use gloves while belaying
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gblauer
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Feb 18, 2014, 2:18 AM
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Is there ever an acceptable excuse for belayer error????
The rope was slick? come on...
(This post was edited by gblauer on Feb 24, 2014, 10:26 PM)
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potreroed
Feb 18, 2014, 4:20 AM
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Belayer error for sure. Guy's lucky he didn't die falling that far.
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lena_chita
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Feb 18, 2014, 2:38 PM
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gblauer wrote: Is there ever an acceptable exvuse for belayer error???? The rope was slick? come on...
And they cal lit a "freak accident" that could not have been foreseen? The belayer "let go because of pain"?
My best wishes to the climber for a quick recovery ,for sure, But man, they better stop thinking that it was nobody's fault freak accident because of the slick rope, if the description of what happened is accurate.
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majid_sabet
Feb 18, 2014, 6:09 PM
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New ropes are generally slippery in the beginning of their life cycle however, belayer letting go off the rope shouldn't be an option but happens from time to time. One of the great report I know was involving a climber who let go off the rope on el cap during a big leader fall. What stop his partner from falling to death was some god made monkey knot that got created while rope was rushing in to belay device and suddenly jammed the system and save the leader.
Another incident that I investigated myself was involving a leader fall while a very inexperienced belayer was handling the rope. Two pitches up, leader was leading to the left about 10 meter and belayer was using ATC while sitting on a ledge. When leader took a fall, belayer locked the rope and banged her head against the wall (wearing helmet) and goes Unconscious and let go off the rope in a slow motion causing leader to deck full 60 m on a 45 degree sandy slope . Five min later , belayer becomes conscious and sees herself 60 m up with no rope to rap while leader was bleeding from head. The nearby climbers come to rescue but the deep burning mark on her hand stays with her for years. What saved these two climbers was the fact that both were using helmet .
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socalclimber
Feb 19, 2014, 1:58 AM
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Yes ropes can be slick when new, especially dry treated ones. There is still no excuse for this. 100% belay error. I've owned hundreds of ropes over the years, I've never even come close to needing belay gloves or any other excuses. I've never come close to dropping anyone or losing control.
Hopefully he will recover quickly and find a new belayer.
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billcoe_
Feb 19, 2014, 3:20 AM
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In reply to: Williams said the system had been set up correctly and they were still not sure what went wrong. “I’ve climbed The Canyon hundreds of times before. It was just an accident and no-one is to blame.”
In reply to: Van der Ham, who has been climbing for seven years, said the group enjoyed climbing at this spot because, being private land, security was not a concern.
Makes me wonder what that really means.
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qtrollip
Feb 19, 2014, 3:50 AM
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"security not being a concern", means you won't find your car being broken into, or stolen, after a day's climbing.
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rsmillbern
Feb 19, 2014, 11:54 AM
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majid_sabet wrote: Another incident that I investigated myself was involving a leader fall while a very inexperienced belayer was handling the rope. Two pitches up, leader was leading to the left about 10 meter and belayer was using ATC while sitting on a ledge. When leader took a fall, belayer locked the rope and banged her head against the wall (wearing helmet) and goes Unconscious and let go off the rope in a slow motion causing leader to deck full 60 m on a 45 degree sandy slope . Five min later , belayer becomes conscious and sees herself 60 m up with no rope to rap while leader was bleeding from head. The nearby climbers come to rescue but the deep burning mark on her hand stays with her for years. What saved these two climbers was the fact that both were using helmet .
2 pitches up and not tied into the other end of the rope....
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cracklover
Feb 19, 2014, 3:52 PM
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lena_chita wrote: gblauer wrote: Is there ever an acceptable exvuse for belayer error???? The rope was slick? come on... And they cal lit a "freak accident" that could not have been foreseen? The belayer "let go because of pain"? My best wishes to the climber for a quick recovery ,for sure, But man, they better stop thinking that it was nobody's fault freak accident because of the slick rope, if the description of what happened is accurate.
I agree, but the fact that they're not naming the belayer suggests the possibility that they actually do realize the belayer fucked up, but they don't want to get into it publicly.
GO
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JohnCook
Feb 20, 2014, 1:38 PM
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I wonder if the belayer was using the pinch and slide/palm up belaying I saw a loty of when in the USA. With a new rope, if the fall occured during the pinch action, it would be moving very fast by the time the hand was put down to the brake position, and would result in a very painful burn. Not that pain is an excuse for letting go of the rope!
An answer to this may throw some light on what really happened, as there seems to be a lack of real facts.
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jt512
Feb 20, 2014, 4:33 PM
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JohnCook wrote: I wonder if the belayer was using the pinch and slide/palm up belaying I saw a loty of when in the USA. With a new rope, if the fall occured during the pinch action, it would be moving very fast by the time the hand was put down to the brake position, and would result in a very painful burn. Not that pain is an excuse for letting go of the rope! An answer to this may throw some light on what really happened, as there seems to be a lack of real facts.
Yes, fake facts are always the best recourse in the absence of real ones.
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sangoma2
Feb 24, 2014, 7:03 PM
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here is the story 
http://www.climbing.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?f=56249&t=11374
(This post was edited by sangoma2 on Feb 24, 2014, 7:05 PM)
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gblauer
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Feb 24, 2014, 10:21 PM
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Made clicky
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theguy
Feb 25, 2014, 3:04 AM
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gblauer wrote: Made clicky
Nice of you and all, but this is a link to another forum with rc.com-style speculation about the news piece originally submitted by the wabbit.
It is neither in the interests of the site owners nor its members.
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cracklover
Feb 25, 2014, 4:56 AM
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theguy wrote: gblauer wrote: Made clicky Nice of you and all, but this is a link to another forum with rc.com-style speculation about the news piece originally submitted by the wabbit. It is neither in the interests of the site owners nor its members.
GO
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Appelkoos
Feb 26, 2014, 10:12 AM
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@theguy, @cracklover,
guess you missed schmeh's post on the other forum:
"Ah no the belayer was not sleeping and actually slowed dyl down a lot before he hit the ground. Furthermore the rope did play a part with the accident as it does have a coating on it that redufed the friction in the system. This was just a pure and unfortunate accident...
Dyl is fine by the way, got a screw in his wrist yesterday for the fracture...his back/hips are fine and nothing is fractured...and of course some bad bruising"
That counts as new, first-hand info in my books.
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csproul
Feb 26, 2014, 3:23 PM
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Appelkoos wrote: @theguy, @cracklover, guess you missed schmeh's post on the other forum: "Ah no the belayer was not sleeping and actually slowed dyl down a lot before he hit the ground. Furthermore the rope did play a part with the accident as it does have a coating on it that redufed the friction in the system. This was just a pure and unfortunate accident... Dyl is fine by the way, got a screw in his wrist yesterday for the fracture...his back/hips are fine and nothing is fractured...and of course some bad bruising" That counts as new, first-hand info in my books.
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cracklover
Feb 26, 2014, 3:51 PM
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Appelkoos wrote: @theguy, @cracklover, guess you missed schmeh's post on the other forum: "Ah no the belayer was not sleeping and actually slowed dyl down a lot before he hit the ground. Furthermore the rope did play a part with the accident as it does have a coating on it that redufed the friction in the system. This was just a pure and unfortunate accident... Dyl is fine by the way, got a screw in his wrist yesterday for the fracture...his back/hips are fine and nothing is fractured...and of course some bad bruising" That counts as new, first-hand info in my books.
That's new information on the condition of the fallen climber, but nothing new about the cause of the accident. We already knew the rope was "new and slick".
Anyway, a dry coated new rope does not cause accidents. We still have no idea what went wrong.
GO
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JAB
Mar 3, 2014, 8:55 AM
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Based on the first hand account in the link provided, the accident seems to be a case of really bad belaying.
In reply to: ...where I took a small fall which was held by the belayer. ... For those people who are interested the belayer was using an ATC and a fairly new 10mm Mammut 60m rope and I fell from approximately 40cm above the bolt.
So the rope was not brand new, nor was it thin. Also, the belayer had already successfully held one fall. Finally, the fall which was not held was not particularly big. So there is no reason to think that the belayer was taken by surprise by a more slippery rope than expected.
Should have been using a Grigri. 
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cracklover
Mar 3, 2014, 5:40 PM
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cracklover wrote: lena_chita wrote: gblauer wrote: Is there ever an acceptable exvuse for belayer error???? The rope was slick? come on... And they cal lit a "freak accident" that could not have been foreseen? The belayer "let go because of pain"? My best wishes to the climber for a quick recovery ,for sure, But man, they better stop thinking that it was nobody's fault freak accident because of the slick rope, if the description of what happened is accurate. I agree, but the fact that they're not naming the belayer suggests the possibility that they actually do realize the belayer fucked up, but they don't want to get into it publicly. GO
The blog post (linked a couple posts above) confirms it. They knew the belayer totally fucked up and was negligent, they just didn't want to cause a stir for that person in the press.
GO
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lena_chita
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Mar 3, 2014, 6:19 PM
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cracklover wrote: cracklover wrote: lena_chita wrote: gblauer wrote: Is there ever an acceptable exvuse for belayer error???? The rope was slick? come on... And they cal lit a "freak accident" that could not have been foreseen? The belayer "let go because of pain"? My best wishes to the climber for a quick recovery ,for sure, But man, they better stop thinking that it was nobody's fault freak accident because of the slick rope, if the description of what happened is accurate. I agree, but the fact that they're not naming the belayer suggests the possibility that they actually do realize the belayer fucked up, but they don't want to get into it publicly. GO The blog post (linked a couple posts above) confirms it. They knew the belayer totally fucked up and was negligent, they just didn't want to cause a stir for that person in the press. GO
I guess you are correct. The video/climber guys are in their early 20s, and they were taking out "younger guys" for their experience on real rock. I wouldn't be surprised if the belayer is a youngish teenager.
Makes sense to keep the names out of the report under the circumstances, I guess. Hopefully lessons learned all around.
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cracklover
Mar 3, 2014, 7:38 PM
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lena_chita wrote: cracklover wrote: cracklover wrote: lena_chita wrote: gblauer wrote: Is there ever an acceptable exvuse for belayer error???? The rope was slick? come on... And they cal lit a "freak accident" that could not have been foreseen? The belayer "let go because of pain"? My best wishes to the climber for a quick recovery ,for sure, But man, they better stop thinking that it was nobody's fault freak accident because of the slick rope, if the description of what happened is accurate. I agree, but the fact that they're not naming the belayer suggests the possibility that they actually do realize the belayer fucked up, but they don't want to get into it publicly. GO The blog post (linked a couple posts above) confirms it. They knew the belayer totally fucked up and was negligent, they just didn't want to cause a stir for that person in the press. GO I guess you are correct. The video/climber guys are in their early 20s, and they were taking out "younger guys" for their experience on real rock. I wouldn't be surprised if the belayer is a youngish teenager. Makes sense to keep the names out of the report under the circumstances, I guess. Hopefully lessons learned all around.
I hope so too. Although the fact that no mention is made in any of the reports of how the belayer screwed up suggests to me that precious little serious analysis is being done. Without which, I'm not sure just how worthwhile any lessons learned will be. (Note my sig)
GO
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mojomonkey
Mar 3, 2014, 8:27 PM
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cracklover wrote: cracklover wrote: lena_chita wrote: gblauer wrote: Is there ever an acceptable exvuse for belayer error???? The rope was slick? come on... And they cal lit a "freak accident" that could not have been foreseen? The belayer "let go because of pain"? My best wishes to the climber for a quick recovery ,for sure, But man, they better stop thinking that it was nobody's fault freak accident because of the slick rope, if the description of what happened is accurate. I agree, but the fact that they're not naming the belayer suggests the possibility that they actually do realize the belayer fucked up, but they don't want to get into it publicly. GO The blog post (linked a couple posts above) confirms it. They knew the belayer totally fucked up and was negligent, they just didn't want to cause a stir for that person in the press. GO
I'd agree on the poor belay, but hope the climber takes some time for introspection. The climber is the one that will hit the ground and should take that more seriously than he did. They brought the eventual belayer as part of an initiative* to bring out younger climbers (not sure young = new, but portrayed as less experienced). The climber had apparently not actually watched the belayer, but assumed since he didn't drop another climber (did that climber even fall?) he must be OK. Rather than watch the belayer or test out them on something easy he jumped on a project where falling was essentially guaranteed.
He traded the security of a known belayer for getting some footage of him working a project.
* It also seems like a misguided "initiative" to take younger climbers out. It sounds like both pairs were doing their own things. I guess I'd have expected more interaction, mentoring and feedback.
(This post was edited by mojomonkey on Mar 3, 2014, 8:36 PM)
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