RRC Archives

Does anyone know anything about an accident at a church near cinc?
The news reports are pretty vague. I friend of mine does a christmas
show here in Columbus and they do some 'flying' and we were
wondering what went wrong in Cinc. I think the system they are
using here is pretty bomber but I wouldn't want him to take any chances.
Alexis

I remember seeing it on the news. The quote from the reporter was "They determined she was using a harness designed for rock climbing". If I had to guess, I would say she got upside down somehow and was dumped, or the thing wasn't doubled back right.

Edited to add: Body harness is a good idea here.

Yea, those rock climbing harness are not designed to hold body weight. Very dangerous.

Do a search on cincinnati.com It happened at Crossroads Chruch before Christmas and there is an article by the Enquirer on it.

Apparently her harness wasn't buckled?

Hamilton County Coroner O’dell Owens said an investigation revealed that the 23-year-old’s costume prevented the harness, which was intended for rock climbing and not aerial stunts, from fully closing.

Owens indicated that Shryock hooked herself into the harness while the lights were down and apparently didn't realize there was a problem.

"As part of her act, she has to reach for the stars, and when she reached, it pulled her clothes off of this and she immediately fell," Owens said. "So she was never, in our opinion, connected."

Shryock was accustomed to working with ropes and harnesses, and had previously worked as a rock climbing instructor.

Owens said he would send the investigation to the Hamilton County prosecutor, who will then decide whether to file any criminal charges in the woman’s death.

http://www.wlwt.com/news/18345358/detai ... n&psp=news

Andrew wrote:Yea, those rock climbing harness are not designed to hold body weight. Very dangerous.

Spoken like a true pebble wrestler... welcome back to the north, hope your having fun at school today!

I got a chance to see the setup, after the fact. The equipment consisted of a climbing harness, grigri, locking biner, ascender, daisy chain, and static rope. The rope appeared to be properly loaded in the grigri. The ascender was on the rope with the daisy chain attached. The harness and grigri were not attached together. The ascender was also not attached to the harness, which might have acted as a backup. It appeared that something (like clothing) may have prevented the biner from locking shut and the grigri slipped out of the biner.

So much for god as a co-pilot.

kato wrote:I got a chance to see the setup, after the fact. The equipment consisted of a climbing harness, grigri, locking biner, ascender, daisy chain, and static rope. The rope appeared to be properly loaded in the grigri. The ascender was on the rope with the daisy chain attached. The harness and grigri were not attached together. The ascender was also not attached to the harness, which might have acted as a backup. It appeared that something (like clothing) may have prevented the biner from locking shut and the grigri slipped out of the biner.

I wonder how a professional rigger would have approached the same stunt?

Either a much larger gated 'biner or cut an opening in the costume to be sure it is free of anything blocking or tangling in the safety device. Clothing and hair can be really easily tangled.
Ever see a figure 8 eat up a T-shirt on rappel? A titty twister' of rope, shirt and '8, left a girl I knew hanging mid rap'. Had to come down and cut her shirt free with a knife, leaving about an 8 inch diameter hole in the middle of it for the rest of the day.