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jkpugel wrote:However, the belay device (It's called a Sum, good design, obviously not fool proof.

-Wow, did the belayer destroy their brake from the friction? Is he/she alright?

- Was the device defective? Are your saying that if the device had been checked prior to climbing another method of belaying would have been chosen because this sketchy device would have been decommissioned? What part in the device failed?

This is an opportunity to educate other Sum users. I am interested because I might have a Sum user belay me sometime.

jkpugel wrote: However, the belay device (It's called a Sum, good design, obviously not fool proof. A little info here, http://www.bluedome.co.uk/trailwalk/tra ... &subcat=32) never caught, which resulted in the climber decking.

I read the write up. It doesn't state that the device will fail 1 out of a million times. How is the review pertinent to the accident?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jlUlVyt6h0
Sorry but that thing is a death device. Get rid of it.
I am not going to let anyone belay me with this, ever....

I just wrote a post about that video and that being a possibility for the incident but the good ole internet logged me out before I could post it...oh well. Anyway, I haven't examined the device for a root cause so I'm not sure if the failure mode seen in the video was what caused the decking but I'd like to look at the Sum to figure it out. The belayer tested it after the incident and said that the Sum used, which was the climber's did not lock when the brake hand was applied correctly whereas his Sum locked when any significant force was applied. That leads me to believe something else is going on with the camming device. To answer your questions the belayer is fine except for the guilt he feels about not being able to stop one of his best friends from decking. He was wearing gloves so his hand was not burned during the fall. I posted the review to give people an idea of what the device is since most people have never heard of a Sum let alone used one so I was just trying to give readers a point of reference. I think there definitely needs to be more investigation into the cause of the fall since that is one way to decrease accidents and I think whatever is gathered from that needs to be relayed to the manufacturer. I meant to say this earlier but I liked your post Art on how we choose things as a climbing community. Last week I wouldn't hesitate to tell people I thought the Sum was the best device to use but the events of the past week have definitely changed that. Time is the best way to weed out the things that aren't the safest or most reliable so for now I'll be sticking with my trusty Gri Gri and who knows, maybe one day we'll all be using Figure 8's, though I doubt it...

If the belayer had a brake hand on the rope he wouldn't have fallen, end of story. Brake mode with the sum is up, not down, just like a munter hitch. My old sum wore out and quit working, but it still caught a fall just fine (because I had my brake hand on the rope). I also heard the same thing happened a couple weeks before this incident resulting in someone falling 30ft on the same device... I'd say that's about time to try to figure out what went wrong, not just keep using the damn thing.

jkpugel wrote:Time is the best way to weed out the things that aren't the safest or most reliable so for now I'll be sticking with my trusty Gri Gri and who knows, maybe one day we'll all be using Figure 8's, though I doubt it...

Sounds like you actually missed my point. check out the clickup it is safer. Sounds like the belayer may have been minding the rope, but was surprised when it zinged through the device unimpeded. After that, serpentine dynamic action by the rope made catching the rope improbable within the next second it would take to catch the fall. I guess if you expect the device to block and it doesn't . . .

Wow, I can't tell what the rope is doing inside the device, but it looks like the rope would be hard to break even with the break hand engaged, especially if you were not ready for it.

caribe wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jlUlVyt6h0
Sorry but that thing is a death device. Get rid of it.
I am not going to let anyone belay me with this, ever....

Seems like a pretty big flaw to me. It's like they didn't even test it.

krampus wrote:. . . it looks like the rope would be hard to break even with the break hand engaged, especially if you were not ready for it.

Exactly what I thought.

caribe wrote:

krampus wrote:. . . it looks like the rope would be hard to break even with the break hand engaged, especially if you were not ready for it.

Exactly what I thought.

That's because your amazing