Belaying Mistakes #1 Cause of Indoor Climbing Injuries

Rock climbing is becoming more popular, and with this, is an increasing interest in trends and patterns of climbing injuries and accidents. Physician researchers from a German university decided to investigate common causes of climbing accidents and injuries in an indoor climbing gym setting. They analyzed over 500 thousand visits to a major city climbing gym during a 5 year period (2007-2011). This represented the first study to accurately track time spent indoor climbing and the types of acute injuries in a large number of climbers.

The average climbing time was almost 3 hours each session and climbers were about 2/3 male and 1/3 female. Median age was 34 years (actual logged ages ranged from 8 to 80 years old).

Within the 5 year survey period, 30 climbing injuries were recorded: Acute injuries happened in 6 cases of bouldering, 16 cases of lead climbing, 7 cases of top roping, and 1 case of watching (spectating; not climbing or belaying). Injuries were rated on a severity spectrum from 0 to 6 (immediate death) — see Table 2.

In this 5 year analysis of indoor rock climbing, there were no fatalities.