[Bonjoy]

There must be some interesting stories of trouser filling near misses out there in the UKB mind-tank. What occasion has been your closest brush with the reaper? Climbing or non-climbing.
I had a few scrapes whilst working in roped access, sometimes due to my own stupidity, sometimes other peoples. Possible the nearest disaster was whilst working on the millennium dome construction. Being a cocky and stupid level one I had got into the (very bad) habit of hanging off one cow’s tail whilst doing a particularly repetitive job about 40m up on the cable-net. As had become habitual I got into position for the task by dropping my cow’s tail through a hole in the structure and clipping it back onto itself. I hung off the cow’s tail, and carried out the ten minute job. It was only when climbing out again that I realised I had in fact clipped my crab not into the cow’s tail but into the tail end of the knot on the cow’s tail and all that had been stopping me dropping 40m to the concrete below was the crab camming across the fairly narrow hole. After that I got into the habit of clipping in with two points!

Climbingwise the worst near miss was probably a melon sized rock shattering 1m or so to my left at Trevallen, dislodged by the leaders rope as he was walking back from the edge to set up a belay. I wasn’t wearing a helmet, not that it would have helped much. Since then I always remember to stay well off to the side when possible in such situations, or to cross my fingers if on a hanging stance.

[slackline]

I guess the closest I've come to being put in a box to decompose was getting hit by a bus crossing Oxford Road, Manchester.

Was walking to work at the Stopford Building from Oxford Road station and stopped at the lights outside the students union/Kro Bar.  As the lights were changing to amber I noticed that a bus had just pulled away from the stop about 20-30m up the road, right in front of the Union, but figured that as the lights had already turned to amber he'd be stopping so blithely stepped out and started crossing the road.  I had headphones on but heard someone behind me scream something and as I went to look over my right shoulder saw the bus bearing down on me.  In a rather pointless attempt at self-preservation I raised my left elbow and got knocked to the floor, thinking "Shit, this is going to ruin my jacket".

Fortunately I landed square on my left shoulder and didn't bang my head on the tarmac so was able to stand up and in a slightly dazed state ask the bus driver what the fuck he thought he was doing trying to run the lights.  The bus came off worse than I did as my elbow had hit the rim and smashed the pane of glass thats by the door where passengers get on.  The bus driver was insistent that I go to A&E, but at the time I shared my office with a clinician so I said I'd be fine and wandered off to work, leaving him to clear up the mess (in my mind it was his fault anyway!).

I needn't have worried either, my jacket was fine 

I also got clipped by a taxi on London Road whilst trying to flag one down.  I'd had a few too many ales and some magic fairy dust and must have been unaware of how far out I had stepped.  Needless to say I got the drivers attention, as I was spun round Micheal Jackson style on the spot and somehow managed to not fall over, but he wouldn't give us a discount on the fare home.

Next up is a SuperTram 


Can't think of any times that I've had close calls climbing (yet, although have fractured my calcanium and scapula in separate incidences, but they didn't seem life threatening at the time, despite the pain).

[SA Chris]

Abseiling down the Lepidopteres after doing the Eperon Nord on the Peine. Weather was rapidly deteriorating by the time we reached the third ab point and was distracted by someone climbing up to the ab point and trying to belay directly from it. I wanted to get out of their way so unclipped from it and leaned back only to realise that I hadn't put ropes through belay device yet. Luckily it was a slab so I could pull up on ropes and clip back in and fix the mistake.

[tobym]

Several non-climbing near death experiences, closest I came, was in 1997, was sharing a house with a load of other medical students*, I'm a type 1 diabetic, and had an early-morning hypoglycaemic attack, and aspirated my mouthful of cereal, and went into respiratory arrest, and had to be resuscitated by one of my housemates, while ambulance on its way. Doh! lost a fortnight of my life, sedated on ITU.

Climbing wise - any lobs I've had would have to be exagerrated to be called near-death.

*Am a GP, now.

[dave]

I'm think I've got the the lower off of a sport route once to find i'd ony done the harness up by the velcro. On the other hand that isn't a very me thing to do, so I suspect I could have just imagined it.

[GCW]

I've done similar dumbass things.  
I remember abbing off something in the Alps with doubled ropes, and a fair way down one end came into my control hand.  Luckily I realised and stopped.  Since then I've always tied the ends together, but we'd been in a rush that day.

There's been various other times involving slips on sea cliffs, the one I remember is stepping back and tripping over a rope.  Only my pal grabbing my shirt stopped me falling backwards off the edge.

Fuck, i sound like a right dozy twat.  no wonder I only boulder now.

[SA Chris]

On the other hand that isn't a very me thing to do, so I suspect I could have just imagined it.

Isn't that what lynn hill did? She fell out of her harness but a tree broke her fall. A bit. The ground did the rest.

[chillax]

Couple of dodgy moments while caving. Connection to my light came undone at a hanging rebelay while I was mid-descent. Que panic, drop everything, fumble around with the light, get it reconnected to see that i'm only hanging from my short cowstail with the gate on the crab unscrewed and stuck in the open position (shitty old crab that should have been retired ages ago). All this at the head of a 5om free hanging pitch. Fairly put the shits up me.

I have a caving mate who has a museum in his shed by the name of "Bits of gear that have nearly killed me". Plenty of jammed crabs, frayed ropes and bolloxed bits of kit.

Climbing wise it was probably while soloing a 6 pitch severe in the mournes. Some foot slippage on the 5th pitch and it was instant brown trousers time! Those were probably my most pant-filling moments.

[fatboySlimfast]

Symonds Yat 1985, part of the scene here was to solo almost as hard as you led. I had just led my first E1 and was regularly soloing hvs mostly closely following someone else just to add to the madness. If you know the yat you will know how stupid this was/is! I was nipping up Hole in the Wall, a starred VS which had the usual yat finish but the main difficulties were going across this shield of rock, easy but out there being about 35-40 feet up above a fairly grim landing. I set off up the first pitch, all great, set out on the second pitch and was crossing the steep bit when the left hand hold disintergrated, more by luck I had a jug in my right. Both feet came off and I wrenched on the the jug spining round to face outwards from the crag. I lugged back on to the rock and gibbed my way upwards to finish off up the tottering mud bank, shaking like a leaf.
There was another whilst soloing Great West Road but that was panic telling me I was about to die

[GCW]

On the other hand that isn't a very me thing to do, so I suspect I could have just imagined it.

Isn't that what lynn hill did? She fell out of her harness but a tree broke her fall. A bit. The ground did the rest.

You thinking of Cliffhanger?

[andy_e]

Fuck, i sound like a right dozy twat.  no wonder I only boulder now.

Even then you manage to twat yourself somewhat... *cough*stbeesdescent*cough*

I sneezed and fell 4 metres off a VDiff once... and have on numerous occasions nearly been twatted by motorists who seem to think that the road is meant for them to drive on and not for me to cross willy-nilly...

Keep these stories coming, they're very entertaining!

[superfurrymonkey]

Working on a dodgy building site in Berlin holding a post whilst it was being driven into the ground by the bucket of a digger, it was being a bitch hardly moving an inch but then decided to go in a good foot luckily for me I slipped in the mud flat on my face otherwise the bucket would of taken me out but probably the closest was drinking myself into hospital with pancreatitis and alchoholic hepatitis was in intensive care for a few days off my face on pain relief then another three weeks before I could leave, the Consultant said he'd never seen a LFT as bad before!!

[SA Chris]

no. Actually she had harness up, but didn't tie in properly.

May 9, 1989 is a day that all longtime climbers remember vividly—the day that Lynn forgot to tie her knot and fell 75 feet to the ground from a cliff in France. At the time, Lynn was just about ready to make a powerful statement—that she, not Catherine Destievelle or any other European woman—was the strongest female climber in the world. The first international sport climbing competition was just a few weeks away in Leeds, England, and Lynn, the first woman to ascend the mythic grade of 5.14a, was all set to take the crown.

Instead, Lynn leaned back at the edge of the cliff, and the untied knot slipped through her harness. Wind-milling her arms in a vain attempt to keep from falling backwards off the cliff,

http://www.adventuresportsjournal.com/html/Articles/23/23_legends.htm

[AndiT]

As a paperboy, the lampost 3-4m from me got struck by lightning and split the top of it off. it was a reinforced concrete type affair and was just hanging there smoking afterwards. I can remember just been crouched in a puddle next to the curb crying my eyes out not knowing what to do or where to go.

The scaredest I've been though was in Goyden Pot when the entrance flooded and we just had to wait to see if the water would subside. I looked up into the ceiling of the cave and could see bits of straw and rubbish wedged up in the roof twenty foot up reminding that if the cave was to flood it'd go all the way to the top!

[GCW]

Even then you manage to twat yourself somewhat... *cough*stbeesdescent*cough*

No, I was stood looking at Clash when I slid on the algae and fell down the hole backwards landing in a pool near to Undercut Scoop.  That could've been nasty too, a few metres onto rock can cause nasty head trauma.  luckily I got away with smashed up fingers and bruised legs.

[Palomides]

Unless there have been cartoon-like events where anvils have dropped to the ground behind me and I've not noticed, my closest to death experiences have both been climbing.

I demonstrated my inability to follow instructions by trying to onsight solo "Don't Slip Now" at Curbar... and slipping off the crux like a fool. To this day I'm amazed that I only broke 5 bones in one foot. I somehow managed to avoid seroius damage by rolling backwards along a groove caused by two of the jumbled pointy rocks. After cautiously lying still to make sure nothing was going to fall off I crawled over to Froggatt, from where a friendly ex-Marine carried me back to the cars.

I also managed to compress a vertebrae and get a ride in a helicopter after a groundfall at Pembroke, but that was just a bit stupid.

[danm]

After being resuscitated shortly after birth, managed to avoid near death experiences until a bike ride went badly wrong at the age of 15. Taking a wrong turn, I ended up taking the slip road onto a newly improved section of the N. Circular. Before I knew it I was pedalling like the clappers trying to keep up with the traffic, frantically trying to get over to the left hand side. Almost in safety, I heard the ominous sound of an out of control vehicle behind me. The car hit my pedal, shearing it clean off and sending the bike 2 feet sideways. My foot was knocked up in the air, level with the handlebars. The car, by now sideways slid like in the movies, somehow missing the other vehicles and ending up on the hard shoulder. Still half on the bike, I concentrate on staying on because I know that if I come off I'm under the wheels of the vehicles behind me. I managed to get onto the hard shoulder safely, always been a bit tentative with bikes since that day.

Had a couple of the usual near misses involving rockfall in the Alps, but my closest call has to be when I was working as a chavminder. I'd set up an abseil for them, but had to stop when one of the little shits decided to mug one of the others for his phone, cigs and cash. Sorting this out involved restraining him, and the adrenaline was running fairly freely. A couple of the lads were still dead keen on doing the abseil, so we went back up and I sent them down. Only as the last one was down did I realise that during the distraction, I'd completely forgotten to reattach myself to the belay. The only thing that had saved me was the fact that because I was belaying with an Italian hitch, when I'd been leaning over the edge I'd been holding both ends of the rope. Still can't believe (several years later) just how stupid that was!

[nai]

In 1991 despite having little experience I went on a winter trip to Norway.  After 3 weeks getting little done due to weather, inexperience and hangovers I teamed up with a local guy and we went to do a 200m IV icefall. It was a couple of steep pitches separated by 60 degree plods through this broad gully leading to a final steep icicle that due to melt turned out to be a mostly rock.  Seconding this pitch I opted for some reason to remove my crampons.

We then started the ab, the first took us down to a shelf with a few saplings, Norwegian guy selected one about an inch thick and sent me down into the gully we had climbed up.  At the bottom I kicked out a ledge and I removed my axes and placed them in the snow in front of me,  foolishly unclipping them from my harness.  I then removed the belay plate from the rope and there I was stood 100m up on a patch of 60 degree snow without crampons and not attached to anything.  Only when my feet slipped did I realise how fucking stupid this was but fortunately the ab had only been 45 metres, I managed to grab the end of the rope as I slid and the stopper knot we’d tied was substantial enough to hold on to until I could sort myself out.  If that tail of rope hadn’t been there I’d have had a 100m slide with a couple of 20m vertical drops, would have been a messy end.  I no longer winter climb but I always tie a stopper knot...

[Dr T]

not climbing but very stupid...
playing bass at a mate's party back in the day, would have been about 17 and massively hammered - soberity came later in life, was standing on top of a borrowed amp, unearthed naturally, which was set up pool side.  Pivoted backward and was saved by someone gabbing the neck of the bass thus preventing me, amp and bass (also borrowed) from going swimming.  Funny thing, in hindsight, was the powersupply from the pool pump house had been "fixed" to allow all the kit to be run without blowing the fuse that wasn't there...
    

[andy popp]

All things considered I've never actually come that close. Probably the one with the most potential was accidentally soloing on-sight the Redhead Direct on White Slab, Cloggy (E4 6a, genuine all out slab climbing some 300 foot up), carrying a pretty full sack. After the shock of realising I was committed I rather luckily found that out on this occasion I was made of the 'right stuff' and got ultra focussed - not too much drama in the end. Funnily, it never occured to me to dump the sack. Far closer (and more stupid) was soloing isome complete sandbag in Pembroke when extremely stoned. I think my soloing career is pretty much over.

[Andy B]

Falling off the second pitch of a route on Annoch Mor, directly onto the belay (a half in, hammered rock 3). I free fell for a while, bounced off the other side of the gully, hit the bed of the gully and started sliding. This slowed me down enough to see my partner speeding towards me. I thought 'brilliant, I'm saved,' and reached out to grab him and end my fall. Unfortunately he just saw a whirl of crampon and ice axe spikes flying at him, and pushed me away over the icefall of the first pitch. I finally came to a halt hanging upside down with my axe jammed between my boot and the rope which was wrapped around my leg.

Landing on my back after greasing off the top of Strangeness at Caley.

Pulling a football sized block off whilst soloing a V Diff on Lundy (to escape after failing on a route on the Diamond). I managed to catch my footholds as I slid past them.

A TV sized block gave way whilst I stood on it half way up the second pitch of The Sind on Yellow Walls. It shit me up so badly that I to used up my entire rack with miles still to go, but managed to gibber to the top.

Commiting to a long route in Wadi Rum with a totally inadequate amount of water. The ascent went OK, but we very quickly became really dehydrated, and progress on the descent slowed and slowed. It was made more tortuous by the fact that many of the descent abseils were down deep gullys, and at the top of each one we could see little pools of water, only to find that they were all full of highly suspect matter and thousands of evil wriggly things. Once we made it back to the village we had hours of fun picking the thick dried crusty crud from around our mouths. It all felt grim at the time, but in retrospect we were probably in a much more serious position than we thought.

A really long slow descent off of Grand Jorasses after doing The Shroud. We foolishly abbed off the ridge down the top of the Mini Macintyre, I had to  abseil so diagonally, to get back onto the ridge, that I had to pull myself sideways on my axes over pretty nasty ground, risking a massive and serious swing back into the Macintyre. This was followed for several hours by a masterclass in abseiling off shit tat (the sheath of ropes, used on it's own, stretches alot over sharp edges!) and dodgy ice threads (these were probably mostly bomber, but I'm not a good enough ice climber to trust them much). This was hard work for a long time, but was probably not as serious as the other incidents I've mentioned.

[fatdoc]

Nearly died twice in one day: well, it felt like it....

I borrowed a copy of opera vertical to distract me through my O levels, and a dream was born.

It's 1985, first time abraod.. bus then hitched with 3 other totally green behind the ears mates to the Verdon. In the height of summer. It's 35 degrees and then some. We have no idea, little gear and only mad dogs and englishmen go out in the midday sun...

After soon realising the cliffs were miles away from our campsite we soon got into the frame of mind of getting up at dawn, drinking so much water you felt sick, plodding up to the first few belvedres, failing about getting scared on the easiest leads or becoming petrified lowering eachother down to second the top pitch of the odd 6a. Then sweating to near death and praying to get a lift back down to the campsite at the end of the day.


Then on day some bright spark thoght we'd tray some heinous crack system, (the one Ron soloed in a flim made way back in the day, La demande) that had an epic (aka horrific) ab in over the final roof of the climb.

after near vomiting with fear going over the lip, and realising the route was near no bolts I was terrified.

On reaching the belay, where may mate sat happily clipped in... the ropes were 2 m short of the chains (45m ropes). I was very light as a 16 yr old (stop it... I was, see later it's relevant). My heavier mate had reached from rope stretch... I was in blind panic mode swinging about 2000m above the verdon near to tears, so I deliberately let one of the ropes through the figure of eight. I dropped with a fair degree of control. I caught the chain.

By this time I'd totally freaked, as had my mate. We went for the pitch straight off. We both had no fuckin chance.


We're stuck.

We have no water.

We have no food.

I have a plan.

After ferreting around with the guide... *voila!* the next 3 abs, not as steep. Got us to a rarely frequented ledge / mini wooden glade.
Shit, the ab station that's meant to be there isnt... now we are really really in the shit. Not far from delirious either..

My mate sat and sobbed a while... I sniffed about the ledge.. and found a 8mm bolt with single crab that was about as good as the old old bolts at L-P-T... you know, the ones that came out by hand.

I went for it. Found the next station some 10m off to the left of the fall line of the ropes. My mate arrives. We pull the ropes... the knot comes to our hands.

The rope jams.

We can see the river, feel its cooling breeze.. we are going to die. One of two abs max... we seriously consider jumping for the river.


I scrape together some prussiks. But the ropes are 8mm, and the cord is relatively thick... they slide down too easily.  I do them tighter.... clip in.. and swing out. the trapped rope doesnt  let me down. Nor did it for the agonising next 30 minutes or so that I climbed the rope. I refused to slacken off the prussiks in case I couldnt get them tight again.. My palms were raw. I cried most of the last few few metres. I was racked with fear.

On arriving at the bolt from hell I found the end of the rope pinched against the rock by the old crab... nothing else trapping it. After clipping a quickdraw on the old crab I hastily clip in and shake uncontrollably. I finally gain a modicum of self composure. I add one of my quick draws to extend the old bolt belay down a little, sort the ab, make damn sure which rope needs to be pulled and head off down to my mate.

I have little memory of the next 2 abs.

(I can remember that you had to pull the gold rope)

On arrving on the gorge floor we bizarrely coil the ropes and then casually saunter down to the river, where we gorge ourselves on the water until nauseated.

Then we realise it's getting dark, we have no lights for the tunnels and god knows how many km to walk in viciously tight Fire original climbing boots.

On hobbling into the campsite in the early hrs the others in our party have given up and gone to bed. To be fair they'd wandered up to the cliff edges, seen out stashed gear and then not quite worked out what to do next. My mate and I were the supposed better climbers of the group so rescue by mates wasnt on the cards. Why they didnt ask anyone else I have no idea.

After slowly realising what the hell we'd been through my mate and I changed into trainers, walked up to where our gear was to find 2 litres of mineral water and a punnet of fresh white peaches left for us by (who we found out later) an Italian team who has seen us on the ledge but just though we were running late so left us some sustinance for the walk back down from the crag.

We ate and drank in silance while the sun came up, feet hanging over the edge.


I still adore white peaches.

[clm]

I was about to write that Popp won....but he didn't.   ^^^Awesome.

[fatdoc]

I'm actually feeling quite close to tears having re-lived that.

[andy popp]

Fatdoc definitely beats me hands down. I actually forgot the best detail of my actually rather boring story. I was carrying a book in my sack that day, none other than Luke Reinhardt's 'cult classic' Diceman about a man who decides to live his life by the roll of the dice.