[TowerTalk] Old Safety Belt

[Pat Barthelow]

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 at live.com