I have heard third hand (from the friend of a friend of one
of the rescuers) that it was not a bolt that pulled out as I had
previously stated (based on my reading of the news reports), but
rather a natural anchor that failed. The rock apparently broke at
some sort of intermediate tie-off or redirect of the hauling
system. The haul system was apparently quite long due to the tight
and circuitous nature of the passage, it had redirects, and anchor
options were few. It is possible that the passage was even too
narrow to get a drill into to set bolts along the way. The rock was
also supposedly pretty shitty, so it might be that bolts wouldn't
have held there even if they could have been set. In any event,
there did not seem to be a lot of rigging options and its hard to say
whether they could have done anything substantially
differently. When you have a long system such as they did, the
failure of an intermediate anchor would necessarily introduce slack
into the system, and it was obviously enough to drop the victim back
into the slot in this case.
My assumption that a bolt pulled out when news reports said
an anchor failed reminds me of one of my favorite stories: Three
scientists were walking along a country road in Scotland and saw a
black sheep in a field. The first guy said, "They have black sheep
in Scotland." The second said, "Well, they have at least one black
sheep in Scotland." The third said, "They have at least one sheep in
Scotland that is black on at least one side." It is risky to make
assumptions...
Mark Minton
Ediger wrote:
On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 8:08 AM, Scott McCrea <sc...@swaygogear.com> wrote:
Andy Armstrong answers your quesiton here:
http://forums.caves.org/viewtopic.php?p=79297#p79297
...and Geary Schindel wrote:
What is reported in the popular press is rarely correct in these
incidents and Andy does a good job explaining it. I think this is
the link to the discussion board of the incident
http://www.forums.caves.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9399
Neither one of these forums discussed the victim dropping incident
in detail. How was the anchor rigged? Who rigged it? Who checked it?
What sort of back-up was provided? What was the hauling procedure?
Communication? Who was actually "in charge" of the immediate hauling
operation (both giving orders and pulling on the rope) at that
time--sheriff, rescue team, who? How far had the victim been moved
when the anchor failed? What were the results of the failure and
fall to the victim? What were the physics of the passage, the slot,
and the victim's position in it--both before and after the dropping
incident? Is the 'gag order' merely a delaying tactic designed to
work out a cover story to mislay somebody's negligence? Those are
the details we need. All this secrecy and 'official report' business
has left me with some extreme doubt about not only the Sheriff's
Department's over-sensitivity to criticism but also about what
really took place in Nutty Putty and a deliberate attempt to
circumvent the truth. I'm willing to hope and to accept that that
may not be what's happening but from my vantage point a few thousand
miles away and sketchy, evasive email reports this wishy-washy
forthcoming of the details surely has become convoluted within my
otherwise open powers of observation and logic--toward the negative.
Can anybody else see that?
--Sorry
You may 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
