Re: (gunked) Gunks Accident(s) this weekend?
Aug 1, 2007, 1:40 AM
Post #12 of 21 (387 views)Yeah, I witnessed the fall. It was BIG!!! I was at the ledge between the first pitch anchor of Hawk and Peregrine. I didn't see where he fell from, although I was told it was from the Minty anchor. I will say that he finished falling, at most, 10 feet above the second pitch Minty anchor and off to the left of it. From my angle, it was quite obvious. My best guess on his fall was in the 50 ft. range. What's the distance between anchors 2 and 3 on Minty?
By the time I got down to help, he was wrapped up and strapped down to the litter. I assisted with the carry out as best I could. Still nursing my sprained ankle from a few weeks ago.
His right leg was busted. I'm just guessing on this one, but he might have done some back damage because of the way he fell. When he came to a stop on the rope, he was facing the sky and did a pretty severe back-bend(arms out and all) as best I could make out.
It was a pretty well executed carry-out especially considering the guy's size(maybe 225-250 lbs.?) and the steep terrain and sharp bends on the descent trail. It wen't off without a hitch. Bob, Jim and Dave we're guiding in the area and their groups were very helpful as well as everyone else around.
I heard somebody say (don't remember who) that he messed up clipping in to the anchor and his partner heard him say "Oops" before he fell.
That's all I know about this one.
-Jason
The victim was a friend of mine named Dave. Pretty much, he clipped off to the Minty tree rap anchor to go off belay and build a anchor to belay up the second. For some reason,
he only clipped one piece of webbing. When he wieghted his Daisy chain, the webbing broke and he fell over the edge. Dave says he fell 40 - 50 feet and badly broke his leg - pins, traction, etc. They later found the piece of webbing and there was a really worn spot, probably behind the tree. He won't be climbing for at least 4 months.
Lessons learned
- Always clip more than one piece of webbing. Dave is pretty good about this, he just made the mistake once.
-Check the webbing you are clipping into.This webbing looked new except the worn spot that broke. Some of those rap stations have birds nests of old, nasty webbing and it can be hard to find the bomber ones.
My own plan is to start bringing extra webbing with me on climbs, clean off alot of the old webbing and replace it with at least 2 pieces of new webbing.
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