I don't know the details of what happened in the recent accident in Tennessee, but I can second what Mark said about the importance of looking down frequently and rappelling slowly enough so you can stop on short notice if necessary. This is good advice even when you think you are sure that every rope rigged in the vicinity is long enough to reach the bottom. Back when I was a caver in Colorado, before moving to Austin, there was a serious rappelling accident that came very close to being twice as bad, by seriously injuring, or perhaps even killing, a second caver. On the way down, one experienced caver accidently cut his rappel rope, resulting in a long fall with serious injuries to himself. (Yes, cutting his rope was another one on those preventable mistakes you don't normally expect from an experienced caver.) At the top, another, somewhat less experienced, caver had been waiting his turn to rappel and was in a location where he couldn't see what had just happened below. When he saw the rope go slack, he assumed that the first caver was safely off rope at the bottom. There hadn't been any "off rope" voice signal, of course, but the caver above probably thought that the wind and weather conditions were simply too noisy for the signal to be heard, so he rigged in and began rappelling, with no thought to the possibility that the rope might no longer reach bottom. Fortunately, he did look down and was able to stop before rappelling off the end, but it was a very close call. I understand that he stopped only about a foot or two above where the rope had been cut, and he had to be helped back to the top by other cavers, since he didn't have ascending gear accessible to switch over by himself. Yes, indeed, sometimes it does pay to look where you are going! Rod -----Original Message----- >From: Mark Minton >Sent: May 30, 2011 8:49 PM >To: Texascavers@texascavers.com >Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Deep cave rescue happening now in eastern Tennessee multi-drop cave > > I can't believe this keeps happening! There have been >several accidents of this nature. Why in the world wouldn't an >experienced caver have put a knot at the bottom of a rope that is too >short and that could potentially be confused for the correct >one? And why wasn't he looking where he was going? I always look >down to see what's below as I rappel, and I don't rappel so fast that >I couldn't stop if there were a problem, like the end of the rope coming at me. > I hope the rescue is successful and that people take note to >prevent this sort of preventable accident in the future. > >Mark Minton > >At 07:17 PM 5/30/2011, speleoste...@aol.com wrote: >>There's a big cave rescue going on in eastern Tennessee right now. I >>know the victim - Dirk Siron. It's Sinking Cove Cave. Forty rescuers >>are in the cave.What I've been told is that Dirk was doing a pull >>down rappel and got on the wrong rope, falling off the end of it. It >>appears he's got at least a broken pelvis. A friend of mine is on >>the scene and texting me. He's at the bottom of the second drop now, >>and the estimate is they'll have him out in three more hours. > >Please reply to mmin...@caver.net >Permanent email address is mmin...@illinoisalumni.org > > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >Visit our website: http://texascavers.com >To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com >For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com > --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com |
