Comments on: Treatment Of Climbing Injuries Increases 63% Since 1990

By: Narc

Narc — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:59:57 +0000

Hey Kate,

That paragraph is one I would like to have back the more I thought about it, but since it was already out there I didn’t think it was ok to just remove it.

By: way to go, blaineiac « SendAustin!

way to go, blaineiac « SendAustin! — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:01:31 +0000

[...] speaking of climbing injuries, no one on the interweb can seem to not talk about this kinda obv “study” that discovered that people hurt themselves rock climbing. What is [...]

By: Kate C

Kate C — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:41:57 +0000

Yeah, I think your assertion that women are injured by men that are somehow responsible for their safety is a bit offensive. It sounds like somebody asserting that women have more car accidents because men don’t teach them how to drive correctly.

In climbing, you are always responsible for your own safety, regardless of gender.

That, and I think 28% female is a reasonable, not disproportionate, number.

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:33:26 +0000

I think this information is interesting but slightly useless. I understand Sean’s argument for better training, however, a few statistics are missing. What is the increase of the climbing population since 1990? Was it 50%, 100%, or more. It could be that the sport of climbing is getting safer but there are a huge number of people participating in the sport. The other deal is that these statistics do not differentiate between climbers getting injured and people getting injured climbing. Gym climbers vs. outside climbers, etc.

By: dmlipinski

dmlipinski — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:52:45 +0000

I read through the article and I’m still not impressed. At least there is some statistical analysis and confidence intervals are included, but the conclusion says it best: “This report confirms much of the existing research on medically-attended rock climbing–related injuries…”

Nothing surprising was revealed and the most interesting questions haven’t been answered yet.

By: Narc

Narc — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:10:16 +0000

You can read the full study here:

http://climbingnarc.com/downloads/Injuries.pdf

By: dmlipinski

dmlipinski — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:21:29 +0000

This all seems pretty obvious to me. I was going to comment more here, but things got a bit long so I just put it up on my blog.

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:26:06 +0000

I feel that with the surge in the popularity of climbing over the years, better training is important.

Some people are fortunate to have/find good mentors, but as the number of new climbers increases, I think the demand for experienced climbers willing to take people under their wing has outgrown the supply. While there will always be people out there that teach themselves to climb safely, I think more/better education will be needed to keep the injury rate down. Especially when people want to trad climb.

By: Narc

Narc — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:17:00 +0000

Again making an assumption, but one would think that most injuries requiring a visit to the hospital are more of the acute variety and not from overuse.

20 feet is a substantial fall but it is one faced (but not experienced) many times by most climbers without incident. In the instance of Mrs. Narc’s ankle breaking fall it was the acute angle of a short fall combined with heinous rope drag that caused her injury.

By: Peter B

Peter B — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:12:16 +0000

Great link and summary. 20 feet for a roped fall is pretty substantial, even on a steep wall. There’s more opportunity for gear to fail or for the climber to land poorly or out of control, especially on moderate terrain. It would be also interesting to know the skill levels of these injured climbers. Acute injury as opposed to overuse injury may well point to the lower end of the spectrum grade-wise.