Near Miss - Lead by partner, who struggled in the middle due to lack of gear. 3 other climbers from the club were climbing the VD and were bringing up the 3rd climber. I had asked for them to lower a carabineer on a figure 8, the 2nd from the group was inexperienced outdoors and thought there was a big sense of urgency and rushed into lowering herself down to help. Under the stress of the situation she believed to was abseiling down to help but her line wasn't fixed. thankfully she had still been on belay at the top and due to the belayers fast reactions was caught half way down the route. I then took control of the situation from the bottom still keeping John on lead belay and directed the 3 climber who had just finished how to safely recover the original leader and the now stuck 2nd climber.