Rock climbing injuries

There are lots of stories about accidents and injuries that have happened whilst out rock climbing or mountaineering. Choose one story and explain the below factors. Use pictures to illustrate your points. 1. What happened and when? 2. What went wrong and what injuries were sustained? 3. How did the people involved in the situation cope, what did they do? 4. What could they have done differently?

Touching the Void

In May 1985, Joe Simpson, Simon Yates and Richard Hawkins arrived at Siula Grande Base Camp in the Peruvian Andes. Elite climbers Simpson and Yates were planning an assault on the as yet unclimbed West Face of Siula Grande, and had convinced Hawkins, a backpacker on a six month trip around South America, to watch base camp during their attempt. Both climbers were experienced Alpinists and, although neither had experienced altitudes above 18,000 feet before, they were confident of reaching the 20,854 feet summit by this new route. First there was a long walk-in, past high altitude lakes and a confusing series of crevasses, and the pair finally slept in a snow-hole at the bottom of the West Face. The next day, all their energies would go into the ascent proper. The pair made steady progress. The climbing was difficult, but they were both climbing within their abilities. Route finding was often tough, although this was to be expected on a route that no-one had ever attempted before. They were occasionally bombarded with small stones from an enormous wall of rock, but eventually managed to circumvent this. Their objective was a gully below the main ridge, where they were planning a night in a snow hole and, despite a small avalanche that almost swept Simon off the mountain, they made it before dark. They spent the night at 19,000 feet above sea level, having climbed 2,500 in the day; there was still 2,000 feet of climbing to go. Understandably confident after such great efforts in day one, Yates and Simpson made excellent progress before faltering a little 1,000 feet before the top. The route had become dangerous, it seemed that every gully petered out into a flat, unclimbable wall, and everywhere they looked there was poor fluffy snow. Powdery stuff that provided no grip for crampons. Joe Simpson admitted to being 'gripped' with fear on a relatively easy section 4,000 feet up. 300 feet from the top, and with the previous 300 feet having taken eight hours, the exhausted climbers found a snow hole and decided to attempt the summit the following day. The pair returned to their packs, which they had left on the ridge, and considered their descent. The plan

was to traverse along the East Face, below the summit, then join the North Ridge and descend from there. Reaching the base of the mountain would be straightforward. But then things were going to get very serious, A sudden blizzard left the pair disorientated until Joe Simpson spotted the ridge high above them in a brief break in the cloud. Simon Yates headed up towards it, with Joe paying out the rope in case of a fall. Then, suddenly, there was an enormous rumbling crash, the rope whipped through Simpson's hands and he was pulled chest-first into the snow. Then nothing. Clearly something big had given way, and taken Yates with it. The rope was tight on Simpson, with Yates a dead weight on the other end - whether this meant dead literally, only time would tell.

After 15 long minutes, the rope went slack. Simon Yates was alive; pumped with adrenaline and shaken, but very much alive. The corniced ridge was clearly crumbling, and extremely dangerous. A further trauma followed when Joe, following Simon along the ridge, slipped and slid into Yates, almost taking them both clean off the mountain. With Yates' fingers becoming frostbitten, they spent another night in a snow hole, using the last of their cooking gas, food and water. Tomorrow, they must get down. The tortuous state of the ridge meant that getting down in a day would be difficult. Simpson was leading the pair down along the ridge when he fell into a crevasse, then another, then another. After scrambling out of the fifth in quick succession, he noticed the entire West Face of the mountain spread out below his feet, and realised he was standing on an enormous cornice - forty feet of snow hanging over a drop of a hundred times that height. Now keeping well back from the edge, Simpson could see with some relief that the col, and safety, were just past the next minor summit. However, one final obstacle presented itself. The line of the ridge was broken by a 25 foot high ice wall, and there was no choice but to climb down it. Simpson had just swung over the top, in a precarious position, and was trying to find a hold with his ice-hammer when: There was a sharp cracking sound and my right hand, gripping the axe, pulled down. The sudden jerk turned me outwards and instantly I was falling. I hit the slope at the base of the cliff before I saw it coming... I felt a shattering blow in my knee, felt bones splitting, and screamed. Said Joe Simpson The impact drove my lower leg straight through my knee joint. As the bone went into my tibia it split the tibial plateau straight off. Said Joe Simpson Joe Simpson was as good as dead, and he knew it. Above 19,000 feet, with no hope of rescue - it would be enough for Yates to get himself off the mountain alone, let alone carrying a dead weight. When Joe Yates got down the cliff and joined Simon, his analysis agreed: He told me very calmly that he had broken his leg. He looked pathetic, and my immediate thought came without any emotion, youre fucked, matey. You're dead... no two ways about it! I think he knew it, too. I could see it in his face. It was all totally rational. I knew where we were; I took in everything around me instantly, and knew he was dead. Said Simon Yates I knew I couldn't leave him while he was still fighting for it Said Simon Yates

While Yates was sorting out his ropes, Simpson was desperately dragging himself along the ridge towards the col. To help Simpson would put Yates in grave danger himself and, although it sounds cold and emotionless, it is not uncommon for injured climbers to be simply abandoned at height in remote locations. This is simply an accepted fact of high altitude mountaineering. To leave Simpson would have been desperately sad, but no shame on Yates. Together, they came up with a plan. Yates would lower Simpson down the slope to the end of the rope, then climb down behind; the ropes would have to be tied together to speed things up, so there would be a precarious moment each time - Simpson would have to stand on his good leg so that Yates could untie the knot and retie it on the other side of the belay plate7, and this with frostbitten fingers, too. Yates himself would be in a dangerous position, lowering the injured climber from a rather unsafe stance sitting in a snow 'bucket' dug to try to keep him in place during the operation. But it seemed to work; somehow they made it down to the col, and decided to lose as much height as possible before dark. On they continued, with Simpson in continual agony as his bad leg kept catching on the snow and on rocks. They still had 3,000 feet from the col to the relative safety of the glacier below, but despite everything they were somehow progressing at a good rate. Optimism grew; though both men were exhausted and increasingly frostbitten as the weather worsened, they even managed to share the odd joke. They were almost down; just one or two more lowers to go. Yates had just begun lowering Simpson down what they hoped would be the penultimate section, when Simpson noticed he was sliding faster than usual. Suddenly he realised; a steeper slope could only mean one thing - a cliff was coming! Frantically he shouted, tried to stop himself with his ice axe and good foot, but the snow was too loose for him to find purchase. Helplessly, he slid off an edge and found himself dangling in space. He was six feet from the wall but, more pointedly, over 100 feet from the ground. Directly below him he could make out an enormous crevasse. His only way out would be to climb the rope using a prusick knot tied from two loops of cord, but his frostbitten fingers couldn't hold it. After a few fumbles, it finally fell from his fingers into the void. There was now nothing he could do. Far above him, Yates was similarly powerless. He could feel from the actions of the rope that Simpson had gone over something, but, even if his fingers had not been frostbitten, there was nothing he could do to help. In fact he was in great danger himself. His snow bucket was collapsing, and an avalanche had filled the gap behind him so he was almost on the edge. Any moment, he could be pulled off the mountain. After an hour hanging on in the hope that Simpson could get into a safe position, he now had no choice. The knife! The thought came out of nowhere. Of course, the knife. Be quick, come on, get it Said Simon Yates Simon Yates had cut the rope on his partner.

Simons Story
The cruelty of it all sickened me. It felt as if there were something deliberate about it, something preordained by a bored and evil force... All that time struggling just to cut the rope. Said Simon Yates spent the night on the mountain, having expanded the snow bucket into a small hole. The following morning he found a way down the rest of the slope and realised what had happened to Simpson. Presuming Simpson was dead, he shouted into the crevasse and, getting no reply, turned for base camp. Becoming delirious with dehydration, he somehow made his way back over the field of crevasses and eventually found water and Hawkins, who had made his way up the valley to see if there was any sign of them. The two made their way back to camp. Nursing a horrible guilt about his lost friend, Yates recovered from his ordeal very slowly, but after a few days had accepted Simpson's fate. Certain that his partner was dead; he burnt Simpson's spare clothes as a symbolic farewell and began to make preparations to leave.

Joes Story
By an enormous stroke of luck, however, Simpson had survived. He was lying on an ice bridge in the eerie surroundings of the crevasse, with steep drops either side; soft snow had somehow cushioned his fall. Believing that Yates had been pulled off the mountain, Simpson realised the dead weight on the other end of the rope would enable him to get up the rope. He pulled on the rope, expecting it to go tight, and was surprised to find the frayed end. It had clearly been cut. He should have left me on the ridge. It would have saved so much... I'll die here after all that. Why bother trying? Said Joe Simpson There were only two options. Go down, or die on the bridge. Simpson screwed an ice screw into the wall and lowered himself further into the crevasse. By another stroke of luck, a thin crust of snow had formed 35 feet below the ice bridge, and Simpson 'let out a cry of delight and relief'. Sunlight was streaming in from high up on one side, at the top of a snow slope, and Simpson could see that he had found an exit. As he crawled towards it, he could feel the snow was very thin - chunks were falling from the ceiling below him, and at any minute the whole thing might give way. He got to the snow slope, and painstakingly made his way up it, inch by inch. Simpson took five hours to cover the 130 feet of slope. But he did, and finally emerged, exhausted but relieved. His joy at having escaped the crevasse was soon tempered by the realisation that he still had six miles to go to base camp. But he realised he now had a choice: Death wasn't a dark, black terror any more, just fact, like my broken leg and frostbitten fingers, and I couldn't be afraid of things like that. My leg would hurt when I fell, and when I couldn't get up I would die. In a peculiar way it was refreshing to be faced with simple choices. Said Joes Simpsons Simpson hopped the 200 feet down to the glacier, slipped on some ice and slid a short distance into a snowdrift. By some coincidence, he was just ten feet from Yates' footprints. He began crawling, with something he describes as the voice in his head taking over and giving him instructions.

Dehydrated, frostbitten and exhausted, eventually he grew tired; the voice told him to find a snow hole, and he slept. The next day, he somehow managed to continue. Random snatches of Shakespeare ran through his brain, almost like a second voice but this one malevolently distracting him. He ate snow to try to stave off the dehydration, and tried walking on his bad leg resulting only in a collapse and despair. The voice brought him back to consciousness; he made his way painstakingly and randomly across the field of crevasses, and there was only the rocky section of lakes and moraines to go. It wouldn't be possible to crawl over the boulder field, so Simpson was forced to hop, aided by his ice-axe. He was now totally disorientated and becoming delirious. The voice urged him on, he collapsed a number of times, drifted in and out of consciousness and spent another night sleeping in the boulder field. Close to death, he found the most annoying thing was that a particular pop song he despised, Brown Girl In The Ring, by Boney M, kept going around and around in his head. 'My God', he recalls, 'I thought I'm going to die to Boney M'. Eventually, resting against a boulder, he realised there was an odd smell of faeces around. It was very strong. He sniffed his mittens, and slowly realised he must have crawled through the camp's latrine. Within minutes, Simpson was beginning his long recovery in the safety of a tent. He had arrived at camp just three hours before Simon Yates and Richard Hawkins had planned to leave.

What could they have done differently?

The climbing community was guided by Joes Simpson's acceptance of Simons Yates' symbolic decision to cut the rope. Most climbers can not really relate to the conditions these two men endured. Simons Yates writes that he considered trying to hold the frozen rope with his ice cold hand, release the belay plate and pass the knot around the belay plate. He writes that the pressure of the cascading powder snow pushing him out of his belay hole and the condition of his frostbitten hands precluded using this technique. Personally, I do not think that there was nothing that the two men could have done differently except from not going up the Mountain. There was nothing that Simon could have done to help Joe, in a situation like that, there was nothing that both of them could of done to help themselves. It must have been difficult for Simon to have to cut the rope knowing that your friend is at the other end. I dont think that I of been able to do it. Personally I think he did the right thing by cutting the rope because he was putting himself at danger holding on to Joe.