Rock climbing is inherently dangerous. That is part of the appeal for many of its participants. Accidents can and will happen. They may happen due to overconfidence, poor judgment, and a calculated risk gone bad or just plain bad luck. It is natural for climbers to take extraordinary precautions to prevent accidents. Even when all of the precautions are taken, things still can go terribly wrong.
Either one of the latter two causes of accidents are usually out of the control of the climber. Bad luck can just happen. It is possible for all reasonable safety precautions to be taken and something still go wrong. It is unfortunate, but it can happen.
Most climbing accidents are the result of climber error in some way shape or form. It is sad to have to lay the blame on the victim, but it usually fits.
This happened just recently to two climbers in Kentucky just this past Nov. 4. The police who investigated deemed the cause of the fall to be some faulty webbing. It seems strange that two climbers in the process of descending from the climb could both fall when one piece of webbing fails. Without seeing their set-up we cannot say for certain that it was faulty, yet on the surface, something seems inherently wrong with the scenario.
Without seeing the webbing we cannot particularly lay the blame for the accident on these unfortunate souls. Yet we have to take from this incident one valid lesson. Check your gear and check it again.
I know that this preaching to the choir for most of us. For some it will fall on deaf ears. For the rest it will serve to reinforce the quiet reminder in the back of all of our heads that keeps us checking our equipment, time and time again to be sure that it will not fail us as it did the two unfortunate climbers in Kentucky just a few days ago.
A great source of information on rock climbing can be found at The Climbing Harness Co.
Another useful guide to climbing can be found here
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