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Re: [TowerTalk] Old Safety Belt

To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Old Safety Belt
From: Pat Barthelow <aa6eg@hotmail.com>
Reply-to: aa6eg@k6bj.org
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 11:48:24 -0800
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Mike Said: > To the guy who was talking about issues with harnesses and passing 
out. I> would rather be passed out in my harness then dead on the ground after> 
falling out of a belt. I have used both a belt and harness and the harness> is 
far superior IMHO. If you don't like a harness so be it. You don't see> rock 
climbers in simple belts anymore. There is a reason.Hi Mike, and group:That was 
me, and I am sorry if I gave the impression that I did not endorse the proven, 
accepted, standard of full body harness use for a minimum safety standard for 
climbing. I do, fully.     I became concerned after educating myself by reading 
the professional papers of the not so well known danger of death and injury to 
climbers whose safety gear worked fine, in the fall arrest, but  in some cases 
they died due to medical problems related to being suspended in perfectly 
working harnesses.   This includes numerous alpine climbers, saved by their 
ropes and harnesses, and in a lot of those cases 
 were quite fine when they came to a stop, suspended above ground.  They even 
talked to their would-be partner/rescuers about how to get to terra firma, and 
then died either before,  during or after the final descent/rescue due to 
medical problems triggered by being suspended by their harnesses. In the URL 
reference, and it's links, below, there is a lot on the topic.  Particulary 
Paul Seddons research is quite compelling reading, to inspire anyone who 
climbs, to think though the last step, of unloading your weight from the 
harness, after an aerial save, after your harness has saved you, if you become 
suspended in air.  Many case histories of climbers, of towers, and mountains, 
are reviewed in his review of 50 papers on the topic; Seddon's paper often 
noted  that the passing out event was followed by death.  
I studied the topic very hard, when I became involved in the Jamesburg Dish, 
http://www.jamesburgdish.org
a somewhat different animal in terms of falls.  At Jamesburg, there were a lot 
of plausible fall scenarios where a fall puts you in your harness 60 ft above 
ground, and 20 ft horizontally from a support surface or structure. 
http://www.fallsafety.com/news.cfm?ID=112 73, Best,  Be Safe, Pat AA6EG  
apolloeme@live.com
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