From a person who was there and witnessed it.
If By witnessed you mean fleeing the scene so fast you left a trail of smoke behind you glancing over your shoulder just long enough to capture a mental image of something you can blog about? Then yes you were.
SAXMAN Worse, she said this was the third time it has happened to her.
100% erroneous. I asked her, It was definitely the first time something like this has happened to her. Seriously dude, a lot of people read these threads, you really need to get your facts straight before you post responses. Especially because now the victims know about this thread and have read all the absurd juvenile comments about the accident that it has made it that much harder to cope with their loss. Seeing as you have near 3000 posts I am sure there are many examples like this in your history. While you were on here pointing fingers, they were thanking God that it was not one of the children.
Maybe at Rocktoberfest we can have an "educational" distracted belaying contest.
Agreed, safety has been neglected and cannot be stressed enough. But the Mike Tucker incident (may he rest in peace) clearly shows that even the most experienced belayer and climber are still subjected to the same risk of accident as a gumby. I can confirm that the climber and belayer were both experienced with the Gri Gri device and it looks as though some of the people in this cyber climbing gossip trash talking orgy have put themselves on a pedestal because they have not had a tragedy happen to them so they feel they can thumb their noses at the unlucky ones.
Those of you who have name called and speculated should be ashamed of yourselves as the same people who they have sought comfort from; (you all) have stabbed your fellow climbers in the back by turning this tragedy into a name calling finger pointing cluster@#$%,.
RASTAMAN: I can confirm your account. The gri gri was loaded properly. Whether or not her hand was on the cam would have only been part of the problem. You can never pin the blame of an accident on one person. It is a SERIES of mistakes and decisions that lead to a disaster.
Why do people trust any buffoon to belay them? Why do people who don't know how to belay insist on belaying in spite of their ignorance?
It's interesting how later in your post you contradict yourself by suggesting to be constructive towards others. In addition, it is also interesting how someone, no matter how much experience they have or lack thereof makes one mistake and automatically makes them a buffoon.
It's that last part that just knocks this one out of the idiocy park
Righto bucko. I am impressed by your vast 'constructive' vocabulary.
Maybe his name was Spot?
Wrong. Circle gets the square. Her name was pepper, but feel free to make fun of them, they're only our fellow climbers.
That is even worse than a complete gumby because they think that their strength implies some knowledge of how to climb safely
That is an interesting perspective. Like Dave Graham famously stated: The smartest climbers are the strongest climbers.
it didn't..the human did.
It is amazing how there were only 4 other people at the crag besides our group and two of them were toddlers, but so many people seem to know what happened. Maybe the mosquitos are posting responses.
the only thing "extraordinary" about this situation is how lucky the climber was to survive or avoid paralysis.
Finally a geniune post. The climber thinks what saved him from a head injury was his head landed on his chaco. This truly was a miracle that he basically walked away.
Sax... you are an ass hole!
I recently spoke to the climber and his belayer today and they are both ok, Quite shaken up, but ok. The climber sustained a minor fracture of a small bone in his heel. I cannot remember the name of the bone, maybe one of you RRC.com speculators can can fill us in on that. The belayers dog was a shitzu poodle mix and grew up with the belayer since she was a puppy. Loosing a pet is like loosing a sibling. If any of you knew the climbers they are really nice people and definitely do not deserve this negative criticism. Winchester ER sees at least one climbing related injury a week and as many as six so there is more happening than is posted on here. We were just unlucky enough to have a bunch of people who have nothing to talk about play telephone. And this thread pretty well shows what that leads to. So lets not point fingers and focus on uniting as a community to bring our fellow climbers back to their feet and use your experience to help them regain their confidence and us grow to as a community. That is what being constructive is all about. I might not be too positive in this post but if you knew the climbers, you might understand my frustration.
