Bouldering Solo
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127 hours too long.
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Kym
Just a warning to those who do the odd session alone. My cousin went bouldering at Smiths last week and took a fall from two metres on a warm up problem. He had no one spotting but a good pad on uneven ground below. He landed badly and dislocated his foot seperating it from his ankle, exposing the joint. Fortunately and surprisingly there was no fracture. An open ankle with bone and tendons visible and his foot sitting nearly 100mm to the right of where it should. There is limited phone coverage but luckily someone was close by who called the ambo’s. The surgery went well and hopefully recovery wont take too long. Accidents happen and sometimes you just get unlucky.
Alot of us have been bouldering alone before, some factors we can control and some we cant. Think about the landing and the ground conditions, how high you will be at the crux and how you will get out of the area if something does happen..
Take care.
Dinah
A similar accident happened at Kalbarri in the Gorge some years ago. The climber was not far up, trying to clip the first bolt and fell landing on smooth but sloping rock. The foot stayed on the rock and the leg kept moving down and outwards resulting in the foot turned at right angles to the leg but no exposure through broken skin. The rescue that followed was a real eye-opener. Climbers went out to Kalbarri to get help which eventually reached the injured climber late in the afternoon. A medic realigned the foot (an agonising procedure) as prolonged restricted blood movement could mean eventual loss of the foot. Then a team of experienced rescue personel and experienced climbers (about 15 in total) relayed the stretcher up to the carpark, reaching it late at night. It took many hours and was exhausting work despite the amount of people and depth of experience. It is a daunting thought of what the outcome might be if such support had not been available.
Fireman Sam
After watching 127 Hours, I am going to tell everybody absolutely everything about what I’m doing and where I’ll be doing it and for how long and why every time I do anything anywhere from now on, forever and ever!
127 hours too long
I was bored stiff by that 127 hours movie. Moron gets arm stuck under rock….eventually chews it off….that’s it as far as the plot goes.
Worse things happen around the globe every day, in wars and the like (think land mines), except not to cute rich white Yanks.
Yawn.
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