10/09/2022

Consenting Adults

A climber was preparing to belay his partner on a top rope. Rather than put his harness back on he decided to set up an indirect belay anchored to the old ring bolt at the bottom of the route that people tie their dogs to. Advised them that this bolt is probably some ancient hand-drilled relic and not suitable for anchoring to. Belayer put his harness back on.

30/07/2016

This is more about the after effects of an incident and highlighting follow up actions. I fell approximately 10 metres and hit the ground on the first route of the day. This is all I can really tell you as I had a serious head injury, in addition to 2 broken vertebra, and have no memory of the incident or much of the following 3 weeks. I do know the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, Coastguard helicopter and local mountain rescue did a superb job in getting me to Leeds hospital, I know this because it was later televised on Helicopter ER. My reason for submitting this is to make people aware of the long term effect of a head injury. I received a referral to a specialist for my back injury but nothing for my head injury. I work free lance in the outdoors and did not work for 4 months, I also took the decision not to drive for a month as I did not feel safe. I am fortunate that my wife is a senior physio and could ask advice from other professionals to help me out. I recovered sufficiently to return to work but knew I was not operating at the level I had previous to the accident, 2 years down the line I felt I had plateau'd and went to my GP who referred me to an Acquired Head Injuries Unit and am now waiting for an appointment due to the high demand.