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Thread: Rock climber falls 30 feet

  1. #1

    Rock climber falls 30 feet

    Rock climber falls 30 feet
    The Salt Lake Tribune

    A rock climber suffered serious injuries when he fell in Big Cottonwood Canyon on Tuesday.

    The 29-year-old man was climbing in the Stairs Gulch area, located at 5100 E. Big Cottonwood Canyon Road, when a rope anchor gave way about 4:20 p.m., said Salt Lake County sheriff's Lt. Don Hutson.

    He fell about 30 feet and landed feet-first on a rock outcropping, apparently breaking both ankles. Search and rescue crews navigated the "very steep," rocky terrain to reach the man, and brought him to an ambulance about two hours after arriving, Hutson said.

    He was taken to Intermountain Medical Center in Murray.


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  3. #2

    Re: Rock climber falls 30 feet

    Quote Originally Posted by Iceaxe
    [The 29-year-old man was climbing in the Stairs Gulch area, located at 5100 E. Big Cottonwood Canyon Road, when a rope anchor gave way about 4:20 p.m., said Salt Lake County sheriff's Lt. Don Hutson.

    He fell about 30 feet and landed feet-first on a rock outcropping, apparently breaking both ankles. Search and rescue crews navigated the "very steep," rocky terrain to reach the man, and brought him to an ambulance about two hours after arriving, Hutson said.
    Rumor has it in the Narcolepsy area, and the route was "Mr. Sandman", and kinda tricky 5.10a chockstone in a wide open chimney type affair (great route, actually, but, kinda awkard). Heard tell his gear pulled when he was downclimbing a bit. Probably in the transition from his gear placements up to the last part of the route, which is steep and smooth and bolt protected. Bomber gear, so, pilot error on the placements no doubt.

    Crappy landing. Hope he heals up ok.

    Doesn't really take that long to get up there, or, down from there. 2 hours isn't a bad time for a car-to-car rescue for the SAR folks. There's a couple of ways to get up and down. A couple of reasonably strong climbers could have hauled him to the road in probably 10 to 15 minutes I'd guess. But, better safe than sorry.

    A friend cratered in LCC last weekend, bouldering, and blew his femur into bits. Not so good. Don't fall.

    -Brian in SLC

  4. #3

    Re: Rock climber falls 30 feet

    Quote Originally Posted by Brian in SLC
    A friend cratered in LCC last weekend, bouldering, and blew his femur into bits. Not so good. Don't fall.

    -Brian in SLC
    Wow, a blown femur?! That's horrible; often fatal in the backcountry. Where in LCC was it? Do you know what the boulder problem was?

    Nat

  5. #4

    Re: Rock climber falls 30 feet

    Quote Originally Posted by nat
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian in SLC
    A friend cratered in LCC last weekend, bouldering, and blew his femur into bits. Not so good. Don't fall.

    -Brian in SLC
    Wow, a blown femur?! That's horrible; often fatal in the backcountry. Where in LCC was it? Do you know what the boulder problem was?

    Nat
    He described where it was (posted below). Sounded pretty painful.

    Talked to another guy who's partner fell way up above the Coffin earlier this year and also broke his femur. They self rescued.

    Marty's story below.

    -Brian in SLC

    Here's his story:

    http://www.mountainproject.com/v/ari...c/106504150__2

    The boulder problem is shown in the Pusher video "Yank on This" and I recognized it right away and was excited to climb it. It is only approximately 8' tall and has two variations. First one you grab the big rounded lump hold and hook your right foot on a big mellon hold and surge right hand up to a big car hood size sloper. Easy walk up to the left finishes the problem giving it probably a V0 rating or something. Not hard but intimidating since if you miss catching the sloper, you probably will be landing on your back. The big sloper was slippery but I easily flashed the problem, yeah me! Then I went after the more advanced way of doing the problem which seemed safer since it was straight forward dynoing. Start on the melon hold, easy bounce to the big lump hold left, paste your feet on the wall and dyno both hands to the giant sloper. I missed the first try but saw it was easily within my reach. Probably only V1 or something.
    I gave it more energy and hit the giant sloper, maintained the swing and totally felt that I had it! On the swing back to the rock I surged my right foot out to the lump hold and suddenly my hands slipped off of the giant sloper. My right foot got hooked on the lump hold which pulled me away from my spotter team and the triple Mad Pad safety net causing my head to hit the pad first, then my shoulder hit the pad and the rest of my body smacked the Terra VERY Firma. I think with my foot trapped up high and my head down low, it caused my mid-body to act like a giant spring which slapped my legs severely onto the ground. Like holding a ruler firmly on a table and lifting the other end and letting go and "POP."

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