In the Marine Corps we had this saying, "Complacency Kills." For the longest time I thought it was just something a SSgt would say to make you clean the toilets with a q-tip longer. However, the older I get the more accurate that saying seems to be. It seems to be more true now than when I was in.

I have been climbing for just over a year and a half. I have seen 4 ground falls, one of which was outside and by the grace of C'thulu nothing happened. 3 were in a gym and one of those resulted in a broken leg. This past weekend I witnessed one sprain and one broken foot. The sprain was because some guy fell like 30 feet, easily 15 more than he needed to. The broken foot was a result of being lowered over a ledge and being dropped suddenly. I had to carry this poor lady on my back down an ankle breaking gully while being belayed from above.

All of these incidents have one thing in common. They were being belayed by a gri-gri. Now I'm not here to bash the gri-gri, it really is a wonderful piece of engineering and has its use. But, I am reminded of that saying, "Complacency kills." In the same way that I believe a manual transmission leads to safer driving because you are forced to actively operate the vehicle with all limbs, an ATC requires your full attention 100% of the time.

Additionally, one of the most common things I hear idiots tell new belayers is "...and you can go hands free with the gri-gri because it is autolocking..." This is of course completely wrong. Most of these incidents have happened relatively recently, and so I feel the need to post this anecdotal PSA:

PAY ATTENTION WHEN YOU BELAY. Just because something helps you brake doesn't mean that it brakes for you. Just because you can take your hands off the device when it is locked and nothing happens DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD. Just because you can use 1 hand to pull slack through the device on a TR doesn't mean you should. Just because there are hotties around you DON'T MEAN YOU SHOULD HIT ON THEM and neglect your climber.

PAY ATTENTION...PLEASE!!

Edit: Forgot to add that I have had to refill my med-kit twice this summer. That seems insane to me. I've never had that high of an attrition rate before.

Edit 2: I figured I'd mention this here since I read quite a few comments mentioning it. The PSA section of my post mentions neither a Gri-Gri or an ATC or any other device, because all of the mistakes mentioned aren't exclusive with any single device. Yet every incident I have seen has been because of complacency which is much easier to propagate on a device that can "belay" for you.

I also observed both falls with my own eyes, so I feel I have a fairly unbiased opinion as I did not know any of the other people there until that day.

The Sprain: Pretty young lady is paying attention, looking up and even giving her thoughts on the problem the leader is having. Thoughtful and attentive belay during all difficulties. The leader is having difficulty and is trying something he is perhaps not skilled enough to do. He falls when past the crux while she has her hands in the air in a cheer. Fairly obvious.

The broken foot: This is a real rope stretcher of a route. You can't rap or TR this route with a 60m, and have to "yo-yo" up some easy, easy 5th class that can be easily downclimbed to lower down. The leader put it up, the follower followed and was ready to get lowered. They were leaving a TR up. There was this small notch with a ledge below it. The follower was being lowered over this part, there was too much slack in the line, the follower then weighted the rope in a fall like scenario to provide a significant amount of rope stretch, and she hit a ledge.

The belayer was talking to one of the party members. Many things went wrong here. I don't know if the leaders hands were on the brake strand, myself and others were busy ducking out of the way of rocks intent to kill me. Helmet be damned. But the follower lowered the leader down the exact same path without issue.