FALL ON ROCK, CLIMBING UNROPED California, South Sierra Nevada, Spanish Needles Frank Riseley (45) was showing Explorer Scouts how to downclimb a pitch. His feet slipped and his handhold was too weak. He fell five feet, jam m ed his left foot into a crack, fell over backwards. His left leg bones broke above the boot top and he hung for half an h our before his com panions extricated him. He crawled to a bivouac spot w ithout splintering, where he was left with his son. T he other four Explorers continued to vehicle with double mission of retu rn ing partway with gear and notifying the authorities. Eventually, after vehicle mishaps, they did notify the Kern Valley unit. T he son left the next day to look for gear (none was brought to rendezvous) and then walked out in opposite direction and notified the CLMRG. CLMRG and KV units arrived sim ultaneously at Lam ont Meadows and drove high with four-wheel drive vehicles. T h e son led the CLMRG team to the area, but in the clouds and falling snow he could not locate the exact spot. Search and some tracking (and considerable luck) led to finding the victim by 5 p.m . T he victim was wet and cold. First aid took two hours, eva
cuation seven hours to the four-wheel drive vehicles of the IW V team . Evacua tion went east to avoid a traverse toward the original entry. (Base cam p was transferred 30 miles.) T he stretcher was brought down 2500 feet of snow-cov ered boulders and brush in snow, rain, and occasional moonglow. T he original 11-person team was joined by eight others who climbed from the east. (Source: Carl Heller, C hina Lake M ountain Rescue G roup)
Analysis W hen a clim ber stops on class 3 to converse, eat, etc., he should have a supersafe position with good hand and footholds. It is com m on practice to coach a climber down a pitch and this makes sense. However, the coach should be very secure in his own stance. In this particular case, Riseley may have felt secure, but clearly had not checked carefully enough. Perhaps a rope co uld have been used for the inexperienced climbers and would have prevented this accident. Certainly, I have always carried a rope on this particular set of peaks (ridge traverse). However, we have also done the ridge without using a rope and the presence or use of a rope m ight not have p re vented this accident. T herefore, some additional aspects of note here. First, Ex plorer Scouts should know how to splint a broken leg. Additionally, as the victim was hoarse from so m uch shouting, the desirability of carrying a whistle is em phasized. (Source: Carl Heller, China Lake M ountain Rescue G roup)