How Norway handles shocking car accidents.
Autobelays is the latest addition to Norwegian rock climbing stadium. Their introduction involved a large number of accidents, many of which were very serious. Fortunately, the latest accident data suggests that the countermeasures are effective. The following report is Safety committee of Norwegian Rock Climbing Federation (NCF).
The first incident of this type of Norway was registered in 2015, and after a climber forgot to clip in, a climber fell off a route. He fell 7 meters, maintaining complex cracks in fractures on his legs and spine. Since then, we have seen a steady increase in such accidents, with severe and complex cracks in the legs, pelvis and back. In January 2024, the worst accident so far occurred when climbers forgot to clip in and fell to the floor from 12 meters. He survived the accident but was permanently tied to a wheelchair.
In each case, it's easy to point your finger at an individual climber who forgets the only thing they have to remember – clip in. The climbers also quickly blame themselves for forgetting such basic things. But if we adopt a broader perspective, these numbers suggest that we have developed and used a system that invites us to make mistakes in our lives. If we blame individual climbers who make mistakes every time we have an accident, how do we build a healthy safety culture? If so, we will ignore the responsibility for dealing with inherent risks and will not make progress in safe work. No climbers came to the climbing gym, expecting to fall and hurt themselves. If we think this is our starting point, we must see the mistakes made by climbers as symptoms of deeper problems and act accordingly. The total number of personal errors caused by accidents indicates that we are facing system failures. So we have to change our approach and attitude to Autobelay climbing problem.
The shocking increase in accident numbers has led to the safety committee of the Norwegian Rock Climbing Federation (NCF) discussing measures that can be taken to prevent climbers from forgetting to degrade. A thorough inspection of related event reports in our database identifies some common factors in automatic racing settings in rock climbing stadiums. Data suggest that deleting these factors may prevent accidents from happening. Therefore, we see the need to shift the focus from personal errors to part of the Autobelay setup that causes such errors.
Following the examination, the NCF published new “National Guidelines for Autobelay Climbing” on 1 March 2024. The recommendations include measures such as using rectangular belay gates instead of triangular ones, removing all possibilities of attaching the autobelay carabiner any other place than in the belay gate, setting aside completely separate wall sections for autobelay climbing, plus many more.
Many gyms themselves have fast focus on accident numbers and soon implemented the guide, and our 2024 statistics show that climbers forget to edit a sharp drop in the number of people. There are only seven such incidents registered throughout the year, three of which occurred before the release of the new guidelines. Therefore, we are confident that the criterion has a positive effect and helps reduce the number of automatic accidents.
NCF Autobelay Rock Climbing Guide is translated in English and can be downloaded here. You can view the Norwegian version here.
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About this series
This article forms part of a series of case studies derived from reports submitted to national accidents and unapproached reporting databases contained in UIAA's international accident data reporting system. For more information on different databases and view other case studies, click here.
