July 19, 2007

Summer camper falls 50 feet in Rumney

According to this article a 12 year old from a Rhode Island summer camp fell 40-50 feet but suffered only minor injuries.

This article is particularly interesting for me from two points of view - both as an adventure activity and because she was a participant in a summer camp.

Strangely the Fish and Game representative said the safety systems seemed to be working and they had a belayer and a back up. So if everything was working so nicely, what happened?

As Bill brought up in the previous post, this incident will get a lot of attention (as it should) but is that attention in proportion to the actual risk of rock climbing? For example according to this web site, in the 30 minutes that it took the climbers to walk back to the trail head there were 2.18 fatal car crashes in the United States. How well reported were those accidents?

Update: the story has now been picked up by the Boston Globe with some more details.

Further Update: the story has also been picked up by the Manchester Union Leader along with a picture of the litter carry. Now they are saying they suspect the climber unclipped her own rope.

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