Reply To: Crashed and slightly burned

Hi Rod:

You were incredibly fortunate to escape without injury! Here are a couple of my belaying stories…

1. A mate of mine teams up with a person he has never climbed before. He reaches top of cliff and starts to lower off. Person has epileptic fit, hand comes off belay. Friend falls 20m to deck – broken vertebrae + head injuries.

2. Climbing at Frog Buttress with a competent person. I am 0.5m above a piece and signal to belayer I am about to fall. I fall but belayer doesn’t lock-off. I fall 10m but grab rope 2m from deck and prevent breaking legs – bad rope burn to hand….

3. I am belaying a friend on a thin crack climb. Person falls 8m pulling 2 seemingly “perfect” TCU placements. He hits me on belay, which is good thing because, as I fall to the ground the slack takes up: we are both hanging on the rope with our bottoms 10cm from the ground….

4. We are on a glacier practicing jumping into a crevasse, while the other people on the rope arrest our fall. The crevasse has a snow bridge about 10m below the rim. I am the first person to jump and I am pretty nervous. Our instructor convinces me that it will all be OK: “just jump” he says in his calm voice. I jump and the belayers fail to arrest the fall. I hit the deck. Luckily the snow is soft and the friction slowed me down…

🙂