22/05/2021

Group of 2+ climbers attempting a low grade new route established at New Quarry (NQ). Belayer inattentive and distracted while using assisted braking device without holding the brake stand. Lead climber visually struggling with the route while the belayer, seemingly oblivious to the climbers nervousness and situation, proceeded to drink cider without any hands on the brake strand with a dangerous amount of slack out. Belayer clearly the most inexperienced of the group, no helmets worn by anyone.

06/03/2021

Academic

Top rope self belay with shunt on static abseil line with DMM belay screw gate - After a fall the shunt became jammed on the rope, it would not open or allow the rope to move. The weight had t be transferred onto a Gri Gri and Jumar. After jumaring to the top, threading the bolted belay, and pulling up the other end of the rope, it was possible to return safely to the ground. Only when returning home could the shunt be removed with a hammer, and it appeared the shunts lever had twisted to the side.

12/11/2020

Nightmare

Whilst belaying my partner as he led P2 of Nightmare another team were up and right of us finishing the E1 alternate finish of that route. The second dislodged loose rock at the start of the headwall which bounced off the ledges below before thudding to the ground 15ft to the right of the start of the route. A couple of minutes before two climbers had been walking there looking at routes to climb, only one of whom had a helmet on at the time. Fortunately we had radios so I could check on my partner and he was ok. Team that dislodged the rock are an experienced pair and no one was injured. Wall was in parts and recent poor weather may have contributed to loose rock on lesser-climbed lines.

11/07/2020

Morpheus

The incident happened in the afternoon at Sea Walls at Avon Gorge and involved a drone. 2 teams were climbing on Morpheus and 1 team on sleep walk. 1 team (us) were waiting at the bottom to start the route once there was sufficient space. Two members of the public were watching the climbing and flying a drone. The drone had been seen previously flying at Main Wall. The drone was piloted to above the belay for pitch 3, circa 60m off the ground, around 10m from the wall. It was my partner on the ground who shouted ‘below’ as the only one who able to see the incident unfolding. The pilot then lost control of the drone and it flew straight into the wall narrowly missing the belayer at pitch 3 (this belayer was very clearly a novice and would not have had the skills required to rescue her leader should he have needed it). The drone, having lost two of its four propellers then fell again narrowly missing a leader on pitch 2 and her belayer. Finally it landed no further than 2m from where I was waiting. One of the leaders was hit by falling debris; no injuries were sustained. The two operating the drone appeared to be oblivious of the seriousness of what could have occurred if the drone had seriously injured any of the climbers.

05/05/2019

Dinosaur Beach

This was my friend's first outdoor sport lead. He clipped the first bolt fine, then went on the clip the second bolt but I noticed that he was away to z-clip. So I started telling him not to clip that way, he dropped the rope and then fell. The first bolt took some of the force but somehow the quickdraw unclipped from the bolt and he fell to the ground. Luckily he wasn't too high up yet and the first bolt took some of the force so he was fine. I know rope can unclip from quickdraws if you backclip, but I've never seen a quickdraw able to unclip from the bolt in the wall! Must have been from the attempted z-clip pulling the quickdraw up or something.