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Saddle Death… Stay safe out there.

Red Beard said:
Not sure which part you're questioning sir. The her feet are above her head part? Or the she's athletic part?
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I think he's questioning what the danger factor is, when positioned like that in this system.
 
Plebe said:
I think he's questioning what the danger factor is, when positioned like that in this system.
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Not an expert by any means, but I can actually see how having your legs above your head can lead to inversion. Especially with sling style saddle like say the ESS where its a smooth bridge attachment that is free floating. Its a weight/ scale concept? That is more weight is on one side like your upper body, you will tip toward that side if your legs is above the horizontal line and the D-ring is floating.
 
Ok, sure.

Look, I don't know enough about rope climbing to provide even a novice opinion. But I can learn how to throw knives at a person on a spinning wheel via Youtube.

I'm sure John feels terrible about what's happened. I know I do.

But some of the comments seem to be maybe a bit of a knee jerk.

I think it'd be more helpful to actually try and find the problems.
 
Red Beard said:
Not sure which part you're questioning sir. The her feet are above her head part? Or the she's athletic part?
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Well I was referring to feet above her head but you could talk to both. Your statement wasn’t clear to me wether they were good things or bad things. It just sounded like observations.

1. I don’t see a foot above head as a bad thing during a rappel when you’re basically horizontal and perpendicular to the tree. I only briefly saw is so I just saw one foot above her head which looked like she was walking down the tree. This is common for newbies because they’re not use to managing the speed of their decent with the pace of their walk. So just be cognizant of that.

2. I think more than being athletic, being in shape or not significantly overweight is helpful in climbing sports. This mitigates a lot of extra and unnecessary risks.

I do think having both feet above the head could cause you to invert if you slipped, which would be difficult to correct for if you’re significantly overweight. When walking down a rappel I like to keep my feet spread a comfortable short distance and always in line with the speed of my rappel so it doesn’t get away from me.

The more I think about it, maybe the biggest critique to JRB climbing is not the technique itself, but the push for big guys and newbies to do it. It is an easy method to do for sure, but those two things don’t do any favors in mitigating accidents. I know the founder of the method did examples of climbing with weights on his back. That might be one of those just because you can (rope climb being a big dude) doesn’t mean you should. I hope John is doing ok with this. I know his top priority is safety. I hope this doesn’t dampen his passion for helping folks get into rope climbing safely.
 
Not trying to turn this into another jrb thread. But there is a lot going on with both those systems. I tried putting something together, and right a way I knew it was gonna take more time than I had to work out the kinks.
No idea how much time he spent with it before trying it out there. But there is two methods he has posted. So I don't recall anyone clarifying which one he was using.
I have fallen victim to the YouTube guy made it look easy as well.
It's a good reminder to practice in a controlled environment a lot to make sure you have the kinks worked out. Also to try and replicate what could go wrong in a controlled way to help you should it happen.
Let's all be safe so we don't have to read another one of these.
 
Plebe said:
Ok, sure.

Look, I don't know enough about rope climbing to provide even a novice opinion. But I can learn how to throw knives at a person on a spinning wheel via Youtube.

I'm sure John feels terrible about what's happened. I know I do.

But some of the comments seem to be maybe a bit of a knee jerk.

I think it'd be more helpful to actually try and find the problems.
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My friend, I hope your comment about knee jerks was not in reference to anything I said. We all feel terrible for Dane and his family. I was only pointing out that the video above contains the elements described in the accident we just heard about.

She is new to the method.
She is rappelling.
Her feet are above her head.
 
gcr0003 said:
Well I was referring to feet above her head but you could talk to both. Your statement wasn’t clear to me wether they were good things or bad things. It just sounded like observations.

1. I don’t see a foot above head as a bad thing during a rappel when you’re basically horizontal and perpendicular to the tree. I only briefly saw is so I just saw one foot above her head which looked like she was walking down the tree. This is common for newbies because they’re not use to managing the speed of their decent with the pace of their walk. So just be cognizant of that.

2. I think more than being athletic, being in shape or not significantly overweight is helpful in climbing sports. This mitigates a lot of extra and unnecessary risks.

I do think having both feet above the head could cause you to invert if you slipped, which would be difficult to correct for if you’re significantly overweight. When walking down a rappel I like to keep my feet spread a comfortable short distance and always in line with the speed of my rappel so it doesn’t get away from me.

The more I think about it, maybe the biggest critique to JRB climbing is not the technique itself, but the push for big guys and newbies to do it. It is an easy method to do for sure, but those two things don’t do any favors in mitigating accidents. I know the founder of the method did examples of climbing with weights on his back. That might be one of those just because you can (rope climb being a big dude) doesn’t mean you should. I hope John is doing ok with this. I know his top priority is safety. I hope this doesn’t dampen his passion for helping folks get into rope climbing safely.
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Every one of your points here are spot on.
 
Red Beard said:
At 18:18 her left foot is clearly above her head

Edit: It was actually 18:26. And the girl in the video is clearly athletic.
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I'm a top heavy guy. Seeing how she had her foot above head height, if I were in that position and foot slipped off the tree, I could definitely see it being a challenge to right myself.
And you wouldn't have to even be completely inverted, even on a sharp angle head down, it can be difficult for a big guy to recover.

I've personally decided I'm giving up all climbing methods that rely on putting my weight into a foot loop. Twice now (2TC and naider/swaider) I've had my weight shift, lost my footing on the tree and found myself dangling... or on the ground in the case of the swaider... The last time with the 2tc having me actually swinging about the tree for more than a moment while I figured out how to get myself back upright. Fortunately I was only just above ground level when it happened... And still have a little bit of flexibility and strength in my portly frame (but that's leaving me quickly at 47).

Perhaps all of us bigger, older, out of shape guys should reassess how safe all these rope climbing methods that we see fit, in shape guys like @Red Beard do, truly are for us.


Condolences to the family, obviously this will be difficult for them.
But let us not forget our saddle hunting brother went off to meet his maker doing something that he loved, out in the place he'd been dreaming all summer of getting out to.
 
Red Beard said:
My friend, I hope your comment about knee jerks was not in reference to anything I said. We all feel terrible for Dane and his family. I was only pointing out that the video above contains the elements described in the accident we just heard about.

She is new to the method.
She is rappelling.
Her feet are above her head.
Click to expand...

how is it different than rappelling on a single rope, where the same condition can be induced? That’s what we should be talking about/examining imo.

what happens if one hitch is rapidly released on rappel all the way to the munter? Does it create a twist and possible inversion? Is it different on a long bridge vs a belay loop?

I just think specifically finding gaps is best.
 
Here's the disclaimer to an intro to arborist climbing school offered by the local university. I took an extended version of it this class undergrad, it was a really cool class.

Safety
Tree Climbing School is primarily a skill-based physical activity. Those with disabilities that prevent a full range of body motion, experience difficulty with manual dexterity, or have significantly impaired vision should not register for this program. Safety is a school priority and will be vigorously taught and monitored!

All I ever see disclaimed is that it is dangerous, rarely mentioned that you probably shouldn't try it if you are unathletic, fat, and/or out of shape. And that is in a controlled setting.
 
Wolverinebuckman said:
Perhaps all of us bigger, older, out of shape guys should reassess how safe all these rope climbing methods that we see fit, in shape guys like @Red Beard do, truly are for us.
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You know, thank you for this. Truly.

This is a sobering reminder about the way I have presented information on this site in the past. My wife tells me all the time I make it look easy. I truly apologize for that. I am certainly guilty of not accounting for differences in physical abilities between us. Because of this, I aim to go back through each of the threads I began, or participated in, and point out that my ideas/actions are advanced techniques that require both careful consideration and physical strength.

If anyone comes across this post in the future and feels that they have seen a post of mine where I did not relay the above, please PM me so that I may correct it immediately.
 
gcr0003 said:
Well I was referring to feet above her head but you could talk to both. Your statement wasn’t clear to me wether they were good things or bad things. It just sounded like observations.

1. I don’t see a foot above head as a bad thing during a rappel when you’re basically horizontal and perpendicular to the tree. I only briefly saw is so I just saw one foot above her head which looked like she was walking down the tree. This is common for newbies because they’re not use to managing the speed of their decent with the pace of their walk. So just be cognizant of that.

2. I think more than being athletic, being in shape or not significantly overweight is helpful in climbing sports. This mitigates a lot of extra and unnecessary risks.

I do think having both feet above the head could cause you to invert if you slipped, which would be difficult to correct for if you’re significantly overweight. When walking down a rappel I like to keep my feet spread a comfortable short distance and always in line with the speed of my rappel so it doesn’t get away from me.

The more I think about it, maybe the biggest critique to JRB climbing is not the technique itself, but the push for big guys and newbies to do it. It is an easy method to do for sure, but those two things don’t do any favors in mitigating accidents. I know the founder of the method did examples of climbing with weights on his back. That might be one of those just because you can (rope climb being a big dude) doesn’t mean you should. I hope John is doing ok with this. I know his top priority is safety. I hope this doesn’t dampen his passion for helping folks get into rope climbing safely.
Click to expand...
Feet above your head while rappelling can lead to inverting. Nothing I have seen in these videos are as simple as basic DDRT or SRT and nothing I’ve seen makes this system any safer. Spouting a double redundancy is great but arborist and rock climbers use larger ropes not just for strength and increased abrasion resistance but also because larger rope is easier to handle. Before guys can do super advanced climbs such as rope walking, on 10mm line they have to have specialized training. Now we are showing people to use 8 and 6mm, tying in munters in the tree (what happened to zero knots or hitches in the woods?) and the entire climb was shaky even when John did it. So we have a small hard to handle rope system that has never been formally 3rd party tested for strength, is not approved or taught by any qualified or certified climber or climbing organization, we are teaching it to beginners via you tube with no evidence of their physical capabilities. We tell them all of this is at their own risk but then go around on every forum and video claiming this is the safest most efficient rope climbing method there is and literally make an entire list of perceived advantages. Yea that’s gonna make guys say no I’m to at risk to do this!?!? So double bridge and double rope equals more stuff to get tangled in. Let’s say he was breaking the hitches like the girl while using the Munter, legs went too high while his hitches were loose, he had a short drop (not enough force for trauma but enough slack to go upside down. Factor in the he was overweight which would make getting himself up right hard enough and then add in the saddle harness he was using is essentially a RCH which pulls more from under the legs than it does from the waist while on the belay loop which is where the safety attachment point is on that harness. You factor in all these to the situation, and for fun throw in some fatigue because climbing is strenuous and that poor guy never had a chance without someone else there who is trained in rope or climbing rescue. Cutting the straps as his wife suggested would still have lead to him falling directly on his head and neck. That wasn’t the answer either. It’s heartbreaking and John is apparently helping her investigate what went wrong and lead to the tragedy. While I commend him for that action, I also wonder if his conclusions from the incident, will also change his system, or his thoughts on its “advantages” over other systems. This is the first official reported saddle death, it won’t be the last because we can’t control what people do. But hopefully we can use this to high light safety over speed or weight savings. Just my two cents
 
Plebe said:
Ok, sure.

Look, I don't know enough about rope climbing to provide even a novice opinion. But I can learn how to throw knives at a person on a spinning wheel via Youtube.

I'm sure John feels terrible about what's happened. I know I do.

But some of the comments seem to be maybe a bit of a knee jerk.

I think it'd be more helpful to actually try and find the problems.
Click to expand...
Right. I would hope we be careful w/all the comments and "what I would have done" if the family follows this... JMO.
 
So my wife who has never been a fan of me saddle hunting read about this event because we share a Facebook account (actually its her account that I just use to get on marketplaces and join groups so I can see stuff I can buy). She is asking me tons of questions about my own setup. This is because one of my argument to her about saddle hunting is the safety, especially as I mostly SRT or one stick. She still cannot comprehend why rope climbing is safer than just regular sticks, or even my old climber as she saw me ACTUALLY have an accident in the yard during practice. But I had my harness on and all parts of the climber attach to each other properly. Resetting a climber is actually very easy when it kick out, imho.

But I think some design can cover up certain possibility of accidents or avenue of danger. I think having a back band while rappelling can help against inversion. Maybe even during ascending. Ironically, she is actually pushing me toward 2TC with a back band as it seem like I'll be double tethered.

Either way, stay safe everyone.
 
@Red Beard you mentioned in a previous post that you no longer rappel down. How are you getting down now? What have I missed?

@gcr0003 as far as the JRB methods, I am completely baffled as to why this occurred as again, statistically the highest risks occur while climbing or descending. Which historically ( I believe ) are based on standard tree stand systems I.e. sticks, ladders, climbers. Since you’re always connected in the JRB methods my assumption is you’re automatically, always safer, statistically speaking.

One thing I was able to do was have the NYS DEC add saddles to their annual, Elevated Hunting Incident Report. So far no saddle related incidents for the first reporting year of 2021. Although in this particular incident, it will be important to differentiate saddle related falls from climbing system related falls or incidents. Technically, Dane’s saddle didn’t most likely fail him, the climbing system most likely did.
 
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