Hi Tom,

Thanks for taking the time to write up this near-miss - it's a high-quality report and well worth publishing. However, I'm hoping you can resubmit the form with some additional information. It's currently unclear whether your doubled rope had been tied off at the middle (effectively creating two redundant ropes) or passed around the stake/through a carabiner. It would also be helpful to state whether your prusik was set up below or above your ATC. These extra details will help ensure readers don't misinterpret what happened to you and give extra impact to the lessons you identify.

The incident and near-miss system has been deliberately set up so that we are unable to edit reports in any way. Please resubmit so that we can share your valuable experience with the wider climbing community. I have copy pasted your full report below, which will hopefully make the resubmitting process less painful!

With thanks from the BMC Incident and Near-Miss team

Date of Incident

04/04/2021

Country

England

Area

Culm coast
Route

Incident

I had just sent a route that was a pretty big tick for me and it was very early in the season so my headgame wasn't quite where it normally is. I topped out, celebrated for a short while, and then because nobody wanted to second it I set up an ab from a stake to retrieve the gear. The adrenaline had subsided by this point. I found the marked midpoint of my rope (recently shortened to 58.5m), rigged an anchor on the stake at the midpoint of the rope, and because I was descending into a river I flaked both ends of the rope into a ropebag which I suspended from my belay loop. I forgot to tie knots in the ends of the rope. I descended using my ATC and a prussik loop. Everything was fine until one end of the rope zipped through my device. Fortunately my reaction was to immediately remove my hand from the prussik loop and it jammed with a very short tail left on my side. I was freaking out a little bit at this point and holding on very tightly to the rope. I was probably about 5 metres above the boulder strewn river. Once I'd calmed down a bit I made an anchor using some of the nuts I'd retrieved, reset my ATC and prussik loop, and did the slow prussik shuffle back to the top. I was saved life changing injuries or maybe death by my use of the prussik. Maybe the unequal rope lengths helped but I think the prussik would have jammed even if both ends had gone through the device. I used to attach my prussik to small loops on the legs of my harness until a friend pointed out that they weren't rated for much and it would be safer to use the belay loop. Very glad of that advice now.

Lessons

Always tie knots in rope ends for descending and always use a prussik. I guess this is that skill fade I keep hearing mentioned.

Activity

Trad rock climbing

When

Descending

Injury

No injury

Rescue Services Involved?

​

Causes

Abseil or rappel failure or error

Anonymous?

Yes

Reported By

Participant

Wearing Helmets?

Yes