Nine-year-old girl dies in a Munich climbing hall

Some halls do, some halls don't. It's not a replacement for testing the climber's skills. Best analogy is getting a driver's license - best to test the driver's knowledge and skills before they hit the road and endanger themselves or innocent others.

True but people still die in car accidents dont they. We have no idea how experienced this guy was, I would have a a guess that he had a couple of years under his gurt.

Yep - and just about every car accident is preventable and caused by human error. My point is that raising the safety bar here above the current level is both easy and a good thing. To echo Bannockburn (who by the way is a kick-ass climber in his own right) "Climbing wall operators should be more active in their policing/checking that customers are being safe."
Along the statistical curve there will be always be outliers - the idea is to put some checks and measures in place to minimize them. Anything here is better than nothing, which is the case today.

As for the adult's experience in this case - we may never know. Perhaps he's been climbing every day for 20 years, or maybe it was his first time (arcticle mentions that it was a birthday party). At the end of the day it's what you do/don't do in the moment that matters.

My sympathies to all involved in this tragedy.

For those who can read German, in 2004 Stiftung Test rated Climbing halls Here.

So looks like I missed something in this article here. I read it again after searching the DAV forum and what I missed is the following:


As it seems the girl had her harness on when she was on the floor, and the rope wasn't tied to it. If this is true, the only thing I can think happened is the knot was crap and got loose when she hung on it after the first 2 meter drop. If this is indeed the case, this guy should be tried for it.

I saw a report on this on the RTL lunchtime news,a nd was amazed to see that there weren´t any crach mats on the ground under where the climbers were - I only once went to a climbing hall, and that was in Yorkshire, but then there were crash mats all over the place, even though you couldn´t have climbed up much higher than ten meters if that!
Maybe things are just different here, but the lack of crash mats did surprise me a bit...

Either way, it´s a very tragic accident, and my condolences go to the family and friends

No. He is in his own hell for the rest of his life anyway. Why make it worse?

I presume that if he is tried he will receive a sentence on probation. No earthly punishment will ever hit him as hard as his own mental and emotional torment.

Would you say the same thing if, say, he killed her DUI?

Was he drunk while belaying her? Apples and pears, Genie.

I meant being reckless enough to DUI as an example to being reckless enough not to tie her in properly. Maybe a better example would be driving with a cellphone at your ear?

What kind of likeness is that? DUI is a premeditated condition that is against the law, tying a bad not or letting a rope slip is either just an accident or at worst, negligence...driving DUI is neither.

Edit: No Genie, as Sara said, that's apples and pears.

Letting her slip is a different thing, I agree, i.e. this could be an accident caused by various things. But tying a bad knot is negligence. I see no way if you go through the steps of tying a knot how you can fuck it up, and even if you did, you should inspect it to make sure.

Genie, in these circustances no law will ever ever confirm his guilt. Accidents happen. Circustances lead from one thing to another. Alone they would be just "Ha Ha Whoops". Together they lead to a fatality. It can go the other way round and you light a candle every day in thanks for it. If you never been involved in a serious accident then it's difficult to show compassion.

Believe me this guy will be living his hell groundhog day for the rest of his life. He'll wish it was him who fell, he'll wish he checked everything 5,000,000 times, he'll even dream it all worked out well and he caught her when she fell. He'll never sleep agian without it being his first thought in the morning and last at night. And when he wakes up in the darkness jolted awake by the pang of irrational instinctive intense emotion knifing into his stomach, he'll sit in the darkness and live those moments again, and again, and again, and again.

I'm not religious but we should show humanity about this.

OK update:

Informed sources (i.e. friends at work) said they heard the dad was tying the girls to a fixed knot in the rope from a carabiner, and the girl locked into the knot at the end of the rope instead of the security knot, which then gave way under her weight.

Sure gideon, I understand he's going to live with the guilt but I feel a bit uneasy with letting someone responsible for a death (by responsible I mean responsible) just go like nothing happened. I think if negligence can be established (of course all our analyses here are hear-say rumor based), I think there has to be a price payed which is independent of the person's moral fiber and how he personally deals with the outcome.

According to the Heaven's Gate website there was a proper figure of eight knot with a stopper tied into the rope. After the stopper knot there was an extra 50cm of rope. After the fall, the girl was not connected to the rope. The girl had a locked carabiner attached to her harness. This fits with the story from Genie's colleagues. The website is being updated with information about the accident as it becomes available.

And, just to clarify, the belayer was not the girl's father but the father of one of the girl's friends.

Gotta love Toytown. Guilty until proven innocent is always the best way forward. And if you do not have all of the facts the conclusively show reason as to why something happened then assumption will work best.

Obviously all pikies are guilty of everything so don't call me on that one

Her funeral is today. It's heartbreaking just thinking of it, and I hope the press has the decency to stay away.

I hope they secure the ropes properly before lowering the coffin.

You insensitive clod.

ooouuuch!! ;-)

MS, that is just plain sick. Your karma has plummeted to -273 and will be trapped under the coffin until you redeem yourself. And I thought the press was going to be bad!

So whoever tied her to the rope didn't follow the figure 8 knot properly with the end of the rope? I don't quite get that. Either way I think it's pretty obvious that it's safer to attach the belt directly to the rope and not put a carabiner between the two.

Said work buddies mentioned clicking a carabiner onto a premade knot in the rope is a method many use for teaching in large groups because you don't have to wait until the previous climber pries him/herself off of the rope before you can tie yourself on.

I think in light of this new evidence the most likely thing to have happened is that the carabiner was closed on the dangling edge of the rope instead of in the ear of the premade knot. The initial stop was caused by the security knot at the edge of the rope (designed to keep that edge from slipping out of the main knot), but this did not hold long and then the girl took the fall.

What still remains for me as a question is, if the man was belaying her and keeping even a mildly tight belay, it should have been quite obvious that there's a 50cm dangle between the premade knot, which was supposed to be hanging over the girls head, and the girl. How this escaped detection, assuming all we guess was indeed the case, is difficult to comprehend.

Would it possible for youngsters participating in climbing at these establishments to have some kind of small helium balloon attached to them? The balloon could be such a size so that they still descend fast but not fast enough to kill themselves. How big would the balloon have to be - can anyone do the maths?

I suggest wrapping them in several layers of bubble wrap.

Butt springs.

woof.

More signs? Perhaps multilingual ones?

How about the good old traditional 'having some experts', rather than letting any old mate take charge and then bleating on about 'we cant be everywhere'

So do you have a list of experts on you br?

unfortunately not I would have thought a climbing centre might be able to employ a few though - or do they just let any old person do what they want on the walls? Serious question.

Sorry though, forgot only parents who have also single handedly conquered the second step on Everest's NE face can comment...as you were

Isn't the fascination with what happened a bit morbid?

I am following this thread with interest because my 9 year old went climbing for the first time a few weeks ago in a hall in Köln. Is it morbid to want to know whether climbing halls are safe?

Looking at the Heavens Gate website I found this page

http://www.kletternmachtspass.de/c1/0803


Which suggests anyone can turn up and use the facilities without having to demonstrate they know what they are doing.

Right. Climbing halls don't kill people, people kill people. Being required to demonstrate you know what you're doing might be useful, but I doubt it would have prevented this accident because I believe the man in question would have passed anything but a 4 hour scrutiny with questions regarding the PSD of the damped ringing of a rope taking a fall from l meters with a mass of M kilograms or the best way to haul and injured partner out of a 100 meter gorge. But as has been pointed out before, if you want to get killed doing something you don't know, there are plenty of suitable Klettergartens outside which nobody owns the key to.

Similar situation with bikes on the street. Much more people get killed on those, but still you're not required to show any bike rider's license before you buy one at Radlbauer, do you? Same with skiing, skateboarding, surfing, swimming, you name it.

Having "experts" hanging out in gyms sounds like overregulation to me. What will be their job definition, authority, jurisdiction and power? Could they arrest someone if they don't like the way he ties a knot? Will they be able to kick people out of the gym because, e.g., they've never hear of method they're using? And who's going to define who qualifies as an expert? The state? The police? The DAV? Are they going to be paid by these bodies, or is their salary going to come off the gym owners? Plus again, there are the outside walls, are you going to fence those? What about walls that aren't bolted?

It never ends, yet the amount of responsibility the state has on a person's life does. If you do dangerous stuff, you're taking a risk with your life and are therefore responsible for the consequences in some cases (other cases being, e.g., getting run over on your bike by someone crossing in red). If you don't know what you're doing you shouldn't be doing it, I think. That'll keep you safe.

Urrrrmmm... Doesn't one do such research BEFORE allowing one's children to participate in the aforementioned activities?

The fact is that you just accepted this climbing thing as something kids like and nothing bad can happen at all other than a few scrapes and bruises a few weeks ago, but now this has happened you have gone all paranoid and can only think that all of these climbing centres are death traps full of unqualified personnell...

I think a lot of the people who climb on this thread are interested in knowing what happened to learn from it. Something went wrong with fatal consequences...what, and how can we make sure something like this doesn't happen in the future? Especially with climbing where we rely so much on gear and specific methods. Was the guy belaying with a Muenter hitch, an eight? Was he belaying properly? Did the rope jam? You can do all the research in the world but I think that if an accident like this happens, it's a good idea to reassess your own skills and knowledge in light of what happened.

Personally, I don't like the idea of the carabiner into the harness and then onto the figure of eight knot. Sure, tying the rope directly to a kid's harness might take more time but the kids would learn from the get-go how it's best done.

In a rush: The DA is investigating against the guy (Süddeutsche Zeitung) belaying her, focusing on the knot fastening her to the harness. More later.

No way this would be possible. Air has a density of about 1.2 kg/m^3, helium has about 0.2 kg/m^3, so you need
about 1 cubic metre per kg of lift. The volume of a sphere is 4/3 pi r^3, so for a lift of 30kg, you need a baloon with
a diameter of 4m. Also, this is not really the idea of climbing: You are supposed to drag your own weight up the
wall, not that fraction of your own weight that allows you to fall without being injured.

Um, I think that was HH's idea of humor, that post.

Genie, are you also a proponent of setting up bunjee jumping towers and letting anyone, including kids, go to the top, attach themselves to the rope, and go jumping off?

Don't know much about bunjee and its safety regulations, but I'm sure someone who does could comment on your question.

I am with you Ruthie. Ever since this came to light I have forced my daughter to wear a suit made out of high density foam, where a crash helmet at all times and confided her to her room, which is now completely empty except for the padded wallpaper and carpeting. I have 37 cameras recording every move and have hired the services of a professional security company to monitor her and record any irregularities in her movement such as, well, moving...

Thank goodness this happened or I may have, heaven forbid, let my daughter go outside or, even worse, DO STUFF...

Okay, Crawlie, so you would buy your daughter a bunjee jumping tower and let her and her friends play there without supervision?

I am far from over-protective, but I think clambering around on a wall 18 meters above the concrete ground does not belong to the normal daily activities of a 9-year old and should be properly supervised by someone who doesn´t let her fall!

just an idea...

Can one actually BUY Bungee Jumping Towers? Well, I guess one can buy the crane that is used by Jochim Schweizer or whatever his name is.

Now, would I let my daughter do that at 9 years old? Maybe, if it was considered "safe". I mean, is it as safe as taking her out for a ride in the car? Or playing in the street? Riding a bike maybe?

This is a climbing hall where an incident has highlighted possible issues with regards to safety. If my 9 year old daughter were to attend such a thing then I would expect proper safety training with qualified instructors before I let her anywhere near the climbing wall. I certainly would not feel comfortable supervising her myself unless I myself was properly qualified.

You are just taking the stance of an over-protective, paranoid and hysterical Mother ever since you read about this.

So, are you going to accuse me of being a bad parent now? Go on. I dare you. I double dare you.

How can you be a good parent? You support Liverpool.

Oy. I take offence to that.

Liverpool supports steal they don't take.

Err, that´s the first time I´ve been accused of being a mother on this forum. I love how people push you into extremes of opinion. My only opinion is that somewhere, someone fucked up. If the climbing hall does not take responsibility for its patrons´ safety, then it is up to the parents to watch out for the kids. If I knew what I was doing, I would take my kid there. I would really have to trust someone else to leave my child´s life in their hands.

Re-read Ruthie. I said you are "TAKING THE STANCE OF ONE"...

Well that sure answered the content of my last post. Thanks, Crawlie.