Owens River Gorge Accident

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ß Î Ø T Ç H

climber

Oct 19, 2010 - 03:05am PT

I'd rather wish her well... We all can make mistakes...

You are out of your mind.

Port

Trad climber

San Diego

Oct 19, 2010 - 03:11am PT

Wow, what a lucky person to be alive! Best wishes on a long journey to full health.

survival

Big Wall climber

A Token of My Extreme

Oct 19, 2010 - 09:40am PT

You are out of your mind.

Hardly.

Woody Stark, JT pioneer, top of pitch accident.

Todd Skinner, rap accident.

John Harlin, Eiger accident.

John Bachar, Free solo.

Need I go on?

Crimpergirl

Sport climber

Boulder, Colorado!

Oct 19, 2010 - 10:06am PT

More accurate to say that we all DO make mistakes. For most of us (so far anyway), they haven't cost us our life or a great injury. Best wishes to her. Her injuries sound awful and I'm thankful it wasn't worse.

justthemaid

climber

Jim Henson's Basement

Oct 19, 2010 - 10:09am PT

Wow- it's miraculous she fell that far and survived. I sincerely wish her good recovery.

It's all speculation at this point but... It seems likely that she threaded just one rope through her device instead of two, or threaded them both and missed one strand when she locked the biner. Visually it looks OK till you weight it and it would explain the mid-fall pause as the rope whipped through the anchors.

Anyhow.. I'm happy she is still with us regardless of the circumstances.

bobmarley

Trad climber

WAS Auburn CA, NOW Seattle WA

Oct 19, 2010 - 05:15pm PT

yo i was there too. me and T-bone ran over right after. we were at Mothership across the way. T's g-friend saw the entire fall! i think that there was a communication error and she thought she was going to be lowered to the first anchor (which is actually not possible because they had a 70 and the 2 pitches combined is like 55-60m. belayer thought she was going to rap the pitches. she leans back and is off-belay and falls the entire 160' only to be caught briefly when the rope snagged at 40' (saved her life) then she fell the 40' to the ground.

-patrick

Jaybro

Social climber

Wolf City, Wyoming

Oct 19, 2010 - 05:23pm PT

All power too her. what a thing to survive! Pulling for a full recovery.

Mike Friedrichs (currently going feral in Greece) had a similar accident with the same miscommunication. His groundfall was only around 75' and a tree in the middle broke it up. He broke his back in several places, was in a body cast for ten months. that was fifteen odd years ago and today at 51, he's climbing 5.13.
good luck

brotherbbock

Trad climber

Alta Loma, CA

Oct 19, 2010 - 05:38pm PT

57 meters????

brotherbbock

Trad climber

Alta Loma, CA

Oct 19, 2010 - 05:40pm PT

That is a fall!!!

labrat

Trad climber

Nevada City, CA

Oct 21, 2010 - 12:59am PT

Bump for update. Get well soon.
Erik

milky

Sport climber

bishop ca

Oct 21, 2010 - 09:22am PT

the same day of this accident I overheard two novice climbers yelling at eachother over the roar of the creek wether to rap off or lower off. This is crazyness! make a plan with your partner before you leave the ground if you have any question as to what you are going to do when you reach the top of the climb. This is all to common an incident. Check your knot (and your partners), communicate your plan, pay attention. Climbing is dangerous!!! Get realistic about what you are involved in and treat it as such. Best wishes to our fallen. and happy climbing.

HighTraverse

Social climber

Bay Area

Oct 21, 2010 - 01:05pm PT

I wish the young woman a speedy and full recovery, mentally and physically. Hope she can get back into climbing soon.

make a plan with your partner before you leave the ground if you have any question as to what you are going to do when you reach the top of the climb.

Well said but I would suggest

ALWAYS make a plan with your partner before you leave the ground so that you BOTH KNOW what you are going to do when you reach the top of the climb.

Spend an extra minute reviewing the plan so it's perfectly clear.
Don't change the plan unless there's a good reason and you BOTH can communicate.

I always do this. With steady partners it becomes a habit. With new partners, or with "social" climbing its easy to forget or get distracted in the milieu.

Always double check the rig, and check again if there's ANY doubt in your mind. Check your partner if you can see them.
The Devil's in the details.

Remember it's not a gym. You're responsible for your own rigging, and your partner's safety. Easy enough to forget a detail when you're out having fun.
I think I'm pretty careful and have climbed a long time yet I nearly blew a trivial rap setup. It almost certainly would have been fatal to me (300 nearly vertical feet to talus). My double check saved me.

justthemaid

climber

Jim Henson's Basement

Oct 21, 2010 - 02:56pm PT

I speculated it was a mis-threaded rappel device since lowering someone on multi-pitch doesn't seem logical or even possible most of the time. Not sure how long the rope was or how far apart the anchors are though.

Years ago I witnessed a similar (single pitch)near-fatal accident where loud noise from traffic resulted in a mis-communication about whether or not someone was rappelling or being lowered. Climber thought he was getting lowered....belayer took him off belay and walked away.. 3rd-party (a total stranger) jumped in and grabbed the rope at the last second- saving the climber from decking when he unclipped from the anchor and leaned back. I guess it's a good lesson to all of us to communicate before we leave the ground to clean an anchor.

Be safe everyone, and again... well wishes for her speedy recovery.

Clint Cummins

Trad climber

SF Bay area, CA

Oct 21, 2010 - 05:26pm PT

Update: she fractured parts of her spine and pelvis.
Two surgeries already done to stabilize her spine, with a 3rd today and 4th Friday or Saturday.
Prognosis is good. [Edit 10/22:] L2 level injury on one side. Will have to wait and see how this works out.

[Edit to add:] She is from the SF Bay area. I checked, and she prefers that her name not be given out at present. Her friends are still in the process of getting the word out (I just heard). She may be able to use a computer in the next week or two, and may make a post. Fortunately the information in this thread is pretty accurate, thanks to the eyewitnesses.

bergbryce

Mountain climber

Oakland

Oct 21, 2010 - 05:51pm PT

Lucky isn't even a sufficient word. Glad she is going to be all right.
Too bad there wasn't a dog to land on like the accident in RRG the other week.

When putting on my harness and tying in I do not talk or do anything else. I solely focus on those tasks, nothing else. Learned this in my early days when I realized multi-tasking while doing these two things is a bad idea.

Crimpergirl

Sport climber

Boulder, Colorado!

Oct 21, 2010 - 06:00pm PT

Glad she's got a great prognosis. The surgeries sound like hell though. Best wishes!

Clint Cummins

Trad climber

SF Bay area, CA

Oct 21, 2010 - 06:44pm PT

Focusing is good when buckling your harness and tying your knot (and when setting up a rappel).
When belaying / lowering, it is more of a communication issue between the partners.

I was part of a similar accident a few years ago - I could not see or hear my partner who had led a pitch > 100 feet. I thought he knew to make a rappel, but he started lowering himself and then he thought I was lowering him, so he let go of the rope. He started accelerating, but fortunately it was not vertical and he managed to regrab the rope and stop himself. It could have easily been fatal. The problem could have easily been solved if I had not taken him off belay until I could reliably communicate with him. But I was trying to speed up the process of his pulling up the rappel rope by taking the rope out of my ATC. Not a good shortcut to take. My mistake.