Joey's Broken Back

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jed
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That was the point I was trying to make.
Keep rigging gear and personal gear separate.
 
I tape my all gear with lemon yellow for life support, red for rigging. Easy. With rock climbing, you often mix gear with your partner, then have to sort it out. Taping a biner's spine is par for course to differentiate between two people's gear that looks the same. Nail polish works better, just not instant (drying time), and stinky.
 
I understand yaals concern regarding damaging a life support line. However I have always wondered why are we not worried about rigging lines??? If they break (which IMO is more likely due to higher loads) many peoples lives can be put in jeopardy not to mention you could also put a divot in the lawn:|:
 
La becasse said:
C
I have a very promising young man grounding atm, he wants to climb but I've told him to get trained by professional instructors, then it would be his decision to take needless risks, rather than apeing my dimwittery.
I couldn't take the responsibility.
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Mick this really surprises me, I always assume that other arborist , elderly, expat brits like me couldn't give 2 Hoots about safety. But you have proved me wrong.:lol:
 
PCTREE said:
I understand yaals concern regarding damaging a life support line. However I have always wondered why are we not worried about rigging lines??? If they break (which IMO is more likely due to higher loads) many peoples lives can be put in jeopardy not to mention you could also put a divot in the lawn:|:
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I have definitely seen pull ropes hit bunk logs. If so, you can cut the end off. I usually use a junk rope for it. Wedges and undercutting the COG instead of pulling also help.

I know my ropes (nobody else rigs on them), not a luxury that all climbers have. If I doubt a rope will hold something that is high load that will be over someone, I get a different rope, or rig it differently. Most of my rope rigging is reasonably lightweight.
 
Hope he makes a full and quick recovery. I keep a few retired rigging and climbing lines around just for tipping spars. That way if they get damaged it's no big deal. I tend to retire ropes almost yearly so I got a pile of them. I'll come down on an eight but I retrieve my climbing line before felling.
 
Sometimes I think we "know too much" about rope. We read about cycles to failure and working load limits and never crossing rigging gear over into life support or vice versa.......and that is good. I want to be safe. OTOH I have been working with rope my entire life and I have never managed to break a rope with out applying a huge shock load or thousands of pounds of tension. That includes some cheesy low quality ropes and good ropes that have been loaded over and over again, run over natural crotches and tied to backleaners and pulled with the truck. I have ropes that have been in service for many years, (Actually I gave a couple to my stepson to use skidding little trees last year that I had for 20 years!) I downgrade ropes after a lot of use......but is a rigging application really a downgrade? (I don't want to smash anything or anyone -do you?) And yes I downgrade rigging lines to tag lines and hand pulling over trees..... and then because it is an old rope I decide to use it to drag a log or pull someone out of the mud.....and it holds.
 
I agree that I probably retire them to early but it's just being overly cautious. I actually down grade them over time. It's really just a new climb line and bull line once a year. Retired climbing lines become light rigging lines and old bull ropes still get used to rig, just not on the hefty pieces.
 
I keep my lines separate.
I can tell you though.. I have line that I will not climb on that should have given up the ghost a long time ago and still has not broke on pull overs. Or even some rigging situations.
I can also tell you.. there are ropes I abuse the hell out of in non critical situations and new no shocked ropes I use in very critical situations.
SO carry on mates. Inspect and follow your feelings on retiring your ropes and what you put them through. I go on to live another day :D
 
Here's to hoping for a quick recovery!


It probably doesn't matter to anyone, but just for accuracy's sake, he fell ~36" (plus the tip diameter), not 18".
 
PCTREE said:
Mick this really surprises me, I always assume that other arborist , elderly, expat brits like me couldn't give 2 Hoots about safety. But you have proved me wrong.:lol:
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Sometimes when I'm rushing and the situation for the groundsman/men is potentially dangerous I slow myself down with the poem about shooting.

"all the pheasants ever bred will not make up for one man dead"

My own personal safety can be slipshod, but I'm trying to improve.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #40
lumberjack said:
Here's to hoping for a quick recovery!

It probably doesn't matter to anyone, but just for accuracy's sake, he fell ~36" (plus the tip diameter), not 18".
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Uhhh, yeah it matters. Thanks Carl. I hadn't even realized that, but you're absolutely right, and it goes a long way to explaining the loss of line from his hands.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #41
stig said:
Jed, I was not so much worried about the pull, since the force needed to trip a spar is usually smallish.
More about the rope being squished between the falling spar and whatever it lands on.

Tel the kid from me that I fell out of a tree and broke a vertebrae in 83 and made a full recovery that has allowed me to log on till now.
He'll most likely have to take care to keep his core muscles strong from now on, but so should we all in this business, really.
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Yes, Stig. I'll definitely be telling him all about your Christmas tree accident, because I KNOW that your comeback would be a huge encouragement to him. Joey's hard to explain. He's completely obsessed with John Krakaur books, and another author who wrote something called Touching the Void, which has to do with being stuck inside a 400 foot crevace on top of Mount Rainier. The only time he ever misses work is because he is ice climbing or rock climbing or going down into some nutty crevace on Mt. Baker. I don't know why I am getting so long-winded with all of this stuff, except to say that, considering all of the crazy stuff recreationally that he routinely pulls off: I just can't imagine him messing up like this at work.

By your standards Stig, if anyone in our shop had an excellent chance for a great recovery it would be him. The guy does tons of Yoga, and is just insanely flexible for a grown man. I'm just really worried at the moment. He was supposed to be out of the hospital yesterday afternoon, but they still haven't released him. I can't even go visit him yet because his family is pleading with our shop not to send any more visitors. Time will tell.

Thank you all so very much for your well wishes and prayers.
 
All the best for him, Jed. Youth is a great advantage for healing. Hopefully he'll give himself time to recouperate, not easy to do when one is used to being active, but it pays off down the track when 50 or 60 is staring you in the face!

Climbing/rigging separate...including biners and loop runners...
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #49
GemCutter said:
Good to hear he'll be OK. Have him google 'autoblock hitch' before he climbs again because sh!t happens.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Looks good, but maybe not as expedient as Sean's simple idea of just leaving your flip line around the stick, and just using one hand to mind the flip, and one hand under the Munter.
 
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