Climbing Accident!

Saturday 9th April 2005

Martin went to the Peak District with Gareth for a weekend of climbing. Well that was the plan anyway. On the Saturday the weather was wet and we drove to Lancashire to see if it was any better. After checking out a couple of excellent but wet looking quarries, we drove all the way back to Derbyshire to meet Mike at Curbar Edge. Martin's judgement was almost certainly impaired by the morning's delays and frustrations...... and he immediately racked up to lead a VS route called Bel Ami. The first 4 or 5 metres of the route were hard to protect, a shallow crack offering the only opportunity (unless you happen to carry truly massive cams, which Martin currently does not). The route turned out to be wet higher up..... and at the point of clipping into a nice safe cam placement at about 25 feet up.... Martin's foot slipped and he fell. Initially Martin fell in an upright position and touched down feet first on a steeply sloping ledge, some feet below a size 1 wire which had been placed in the crack and vigorously tested. Unfortunately the ledge threw Martin backwards and away from the face, causing a lot of horizontal pull to be placed in the wire.... the wire held for half a second and then came out. Martin fell the rest of the way landing on his back and side amongst large rocks at the foot of the route.

Martin was unconscious for about a minute. Mike called an ambulance and Gareth looked after Martin. Shortly after regaining consciousness, Martin heard sirens as an ambulance arrived at the parking area, about a 5 or 10 minute hike away. A medic arrived, followed by numerous others. Much of Martin's clothing and climbing gear were cut away and morphine administered. The was very welcome... martin's head and back hurt a lot! He was then stretchered to the helicopter and flown to Chesterfield Hospital. Gareth and Mike followed by car. The emergency response was truly excellent and much respect and thanks are due.

At Chesterfield Hospital Martin underwent a CT scan and various x-rays. He had cracked a rib, broken his collar bone and more seriously, fractured his skull in a couple of places. Luckily, none of the other suspected/possible injuries that he had been tested for were present. Top of the list of been a broken neck or other spinal injury closely followed by a broken jaw (which whilst escaping fracture was badly knocked about and became very sore later on!). The morphine kept on coming and Martin was able to talk to Marina by phone and hopefully reassure her a little.

After consideration, it was decided to transfer Martin to the neurological ward at Sheffield's Royal Hallamshire hospital. Gareth followed by car. They arrived at about half past midnight. Martin's Dad made a very welcome appearance too. After some time, Martin was informed that the team had decided against operating on his fractured skull. This was a big relief. Gareth checked into a hotel for the night.

Marina, Becky and Jack arrived at the hospital the next day (Sunday) and stayed 24 hours. The kids looked worried at first but soon perked up. Gareth headed back home later that day.

Martin stayed in hospital until Thursday morning. Amongst his visitors were his mum, who flew all the way over from Spain, his Dad again, old friends Phil and Sarah, climbers Mike and James and... Gareth (again!) with Stuart, who drove all the way up from Surrey/Sussex.

There should probably be a moral to the story at this point. Well there isn't. However Martin is not stopping climbing.... but will be taking some positive lessons from this 'orrible experience and hopefully be a better and safer climber as a result.

Click on the thumbnails for full sized photos....

Pic of the route Martin fell off!

The black eye got *much* more interesting. In fact yellow and purple became increasingly prevalent all over Martin's body!