You know that lady with the coffee burns had a very legitimate lawsuit, right? The coffee was served 50 degrees hotter than the legal limit, so she dropped it when holding the cup burned her hand. She had 3rd degree burns and had to have several skin grafts while hospitalized for over a week. The reason public opinion labels her crazy/entitled is because McDonald's hired a PR company to make her look bad and publicly shame her.
and more importantly, she sued only for $20k (her medical costs). Instead, the judge decided to award her the equivalent of two days of coffee sales for mcdonalds (which was millions of dollars)
I immediately thought the same thing. It really was a life changing thing for her so it was very justified. But I understand if Climbing stuff didn't know about it cuz it was covered up a lot.
he was just using something as an example, not specifying that specific one or anything. simply saying that some people sue for way too much for things that dont deserve it.
1:29 The coffee spill thing you mentioned in passing isn't actually how you think it is. There was a coffeemaker in a chain restaurant that made boiling coffee. As you well know, coffee isn't boiling when you pour it into your cup. The person who spilled on themself actually got second degree burns from it. There was a campaign to make the victim look stupid, and that's what you were parroting.
When I was younger and climbing, one gym had an auto-belay device with an auto-locking carabineer that had chalk in the locking device. The carabineer gate wouldn't rotate and the collar wouldn't slip up without being manually rotated. The problem wasn't the auto-belay, it was the carabineer.
I know you don't mean any ill intent by it, but you should probably read the Wikipedia page for "Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants" before joking about spilled coffee. McDonalds was serving coffee hot enough to cause third degree burns in 3 seconds of contact. The woman was hospitalized for eight days after spilling it in her lap. She was also only asking McDonalds for $20k to cover her medical expenses.
My gym took out their auto belays on the 50ft walls because of this. We only have them on the 25ft walls now. We also installed these GINORMOUS signs you have to unclip the auto belay from before you can clip onto your harness.
He didn’t mention this, but the gym owner did NOT want to settle because he felt the lawsuit was frivolous. However, since it was the gym’s insurance company that was handling the lawsuit, they decided to settle. So the gym didn’t want to settle, its insurance company did. The statement released by the injured man’s lawyers was misleading.
I can understand why they would settle tbf. Afaik, if they don't go to court, it doesn't set precedent. So they don't risk legally making climbing gyms responsible for people's safety if the judge ruled against them. Which for a climbing insurance company would be a ballache
I actually was there when a dude in my gym realised at the top (15meters) that he didn't clip in, he basically went up free soloing the route. Lucly I yelled at him to stop, because the last move was a jump. And also luckily, he was climbing in a corner so he could wait safely with good balance that someone climbed up with two systems and helped him clipping in.... Long story short, I'm still traumatised from witnessing this scene, and now I triple check if I'm attached
yea, I have a similar story but the thing is I just heard a scream, I just had the time to turn my head and saw a girl falling like 15 meters. Luckily she didn't die but had serious wounds as she fell on a really thin matress (hopefully not solid ground otherwise whe would be dead). There was a small investigation and all leads to the fact that she simply didn't clip at all....
My climbing partner is a lot lighter than me, so we need to prep for that before climbing Once I got like halfway up the rope before she realised and called me to climb down Nowhere near as severe, but definitely shook us Forgetting to clip in at all would be a nightmare scenario
What kind of setup do you guys have there? In the gyms I go to each auto belay is attached to a large mat covering the start of the route (vertically, against the wall) and there are signs saying things to the effect of "Are you clipped in?". So if someone were to forget to clip in they would have to bypass the mat and miss the signs.. not to mention contend with the rope of the extended auto belay.
@KhelbenGeldon once you climb enough you stop noticing the signage and stuff It's quite easy to get lax with your checks even if you do do them, and you basically autopilot through the motion. It's why it's so important to stay alert, and dont let yourself autopilot.
I love how you brought up the coffee lawsuit. She was awarded way more than she sued for because Maccas had heaps of complaints against them, and the coffee was so hot in permanently damaged her genitalia. It was life changing for that woman.
Its not that people don't believe she was injured. It's that people understand it's her fault she got burned. Coffee is hot. It was that hot every time she got it and everyone else can consume coffee without permanently damaging their own genitals. So winning a lawsuit simply because coffee IS hot is ridiculous. Noone thinks the coffee wasn't hot, just that she shouldn't have marinated her crotch in it and shouldn't be able to blame a restaurant for coffee being a hot drink
@@louiehunter6490 "McDonald also said during discovery that, based on a consultant’s advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit to maintain optimum taste. He admitted that he had not evaluated the safety ramifications at this temperature. Other establishments sell coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees. Futher, Mcdonald’s quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above and that Mcdonald's coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into Styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the “holding temperature” of its coffee." They were not serving a "hot drink" they were serving fucking lava when they knew it would melt through your skin (btw you troglodyte there were multiple cases of the WORKERS causing the spills via loose lids and one where they spilled it on a woman in her car ALSO numerous instances of children getting burned) they FINALLY start serving it at a normal 158 degrees after the lawsuit you barely know anything about
I’m glad to see so many comments about the coffee burn situation. It breaks my heart that McDonald’s had such a successful smear campaign against a woman who got 3rd degree burns from entirely too hot coffee.
I have no idea what happened in the coffe-case but there must be some misunderstanding here. Coffe can not be hotter than a 100°C and that is not hot enough to give third degree burns. If poured on someone they would get second degree burns, which of course is not nice either.
@@JacobLikesMusic 100° is definitely enough to give 3rd degree burns, it'll even be pretty fast. According to a couple of fire department websites I checked it only takes around one second to get a 3rd degree burn in ~70° water.
@@adrian9048 I stand corrected. I did some googling too, and it seems you can get third degree burn from exposure to boiling hot water (and less). Usually if you spill, the exposure is so short that it won't happen. But if there is longer exposure then apparently, yes.
@@JacobLikesMusic She dropped the coffee in her lap while sat in her car so she was in contact with a pool of the hot liquid for longer than if it had been able to run off of her.
There's a RUclips video about how mcdonalds had a coffee machine that was brewing 220 degree coffee and knew it. The attorneys for mcds intentionally led the public to believe it wasn't their fault.
At our gym they moved to a double carabiner a few years ago. They clip-in in opposite directions. Thought it was dumb at the time but I guess this is why.
Damn. My gym has double carabiners since i was a tennager. About 9 years ago. For me thats just standart. If the Gyms mentioned in the video didn't have double biners(wich is unlikely) that would indeed be pretty stupid by them.
And aren’t the carabiners they use supposed to be triple action carabiners? Like pull down, twist, push (Doubling up is never really gonna be a bad idea either way though)
Please look up the McDonald coffee lawsuit before using it as an example of rampant lawsuit. What you parroted is the deformed, PR version from McDonald. The lady had incredibly serious third degree burns on her thighs and genitals from a coffee served KNOWINGLY much, much hotter than regulation. She only wanted to sue to cover her medical expanses and it's actually the judge who awarded her the equivalent of one or two days (can't remember) of coffee sales at McDonald when he learned that the McDonald the lady had gone to knew about the problem and had already received complaints. Don't fall for McDonald PR and smear campaign However I agree that this lawsuit is stupid and who knows how it might affect climbing gyms...
Even more than the seriousness of the injuries, what really makes this bad for McDonald's is that they intentionally made the coffee too hot, to force people to wait for it to cool down, in order to discourage free refills. They charged extra for "free refill" coffee but then put hurdles in the way as cost cutting measures, and people were hurt by their greediness.
I think the most important detail is the waiver. By default, somebody who climbs auto-belay independently has passed orientation and is responsible for ensuring their own safety and checking the gear before climbing.
Waivers contents don't really matter because people in these catastrophic injury cases its always depends on if there was negligence and if there is the waiver doesn't matter. You can look at it like this: If the gym could have done something reasonably easy to prevent the injury like for example a safety briefing on clipping in correctly and did not do that then its negligence and they will get a % of fault.
@@emperorsascharoni9577 So why do they make you sign a waiver? Every climbing gym waiver I've ever signed has said that you assume responsibility for the risk that you might die or become severely injured/disabled. I'm not saying you're wrong, I just want to know why the waiver would even exist because I hate having to sign waivers!
@@_415_ My dad lost a finger years ago at a skatepark in a freak accident. Basically, during a fall his wedding ring caught on a screw that the skatepark hadn’t drilled in all the way and it wound up de-gloving/breaking off part of his finger. Was the skatepark negligent in not maintaining their equipment? Big time. That place was a mess and had rusty tetanus metal sticking out all over the place but when he sought legal action against them it didn’t matter because he had signed a waiver stating that it was up to the skater/rider to determine what was and wasn’t safe. That alone essentially made it airtight and he never got a dime from them. Their waiver was also WAY less lengthy than the typical ones I’ve had to fill out to climb in gyms. I feel like they’re pretty strict with that shit for a reason and you’d need a high profile lawyer to get anywhere.
@@_415_It’s not that waivers are irrelevant or useless, it’s just when a case of that magnitude starts getting washed through the legal system (and lawyers) they’re able to start chipping away at discrepancies.
@ It absolves gym from some responsibility but not all. Gym still can not be negligent. For instance, if gym forgets to fasten the holds properly and somebody falls, it is still liable, and you cannot sign this your right off.
In my gym there is a system with the autobelay that doesn't let you climb if you're not properly attached. The autobelay wire is attached to a sort of gate which blocks you from going to the starting holds.You can push the gate away only if you attach the autobelay correctly. It's practically impossible to fail attaching the autobelay. Additionaly bonus for beginners is that the risk of letting go of the cable and the autobelay pulling the wire up the wall is also eliminated. I think most gyms should have a system like that.
Should just have it in a contract with a little boulder pad to ask them to jump down from the first hold and maybe like a voice recording so that when try to climb by moving the triangular mat it will say "Step one clip in Step 2 step up and Step 3 jump as high off the first foot hold and land on the mat... If they dont follow the procedure then they get their rights are revoked
Here in the UK, in a gym I have been, you need to be supervised by an expert even to auto belay. The "expert" can be anyone who passed a test, where you need to demonstrate you can effectively belay. So, a noob can't really climb auto belay, not if not supervised by someone who is more experienced. I think that should be the rule if a system like you have described is not in place.
@@biomorphicdo the "experts" need someone to supervise them too? Cause if not I think most places do that. The people who died or hurt themselves on auto belay most likely are people who were trained in it, they just slipped up unfortunately.
Maybe it's because I do climbing professionally in Industrial compounds (Factories, Malls, Towers, etc.) that it seems crazy to me, but this shouldn't happen and if it happens YOU are at fault, YOU need to check your gear and if you are not a seasoned climber, you NEED to have a buddy check, there is no excuse for this, the half-clip happens a lot, especially in my job, but there is NO WAY you'd EVER go up anywhere with that, if you can miss that, you shouldn't be doing anything dangerous that needs YOU to make sure you are safe. Climbing Gear has gotten so good that the possibility of failure without human interference or misuse is nearly 0%. I am sorry if this is shitty towards the person that fell or their family, but sometimes we need the hard truth, my condolences still go out and I hope the person has made a good recovery!
If you have amateurs using auto belay devices, just change it so that you have carabiners which lock explicitly and maybe use a second like you have to clip in, too. Would reduce chance of failure for non routine climbers by a lot.
Insurance actuary here. There is something called social inflation, where claims costs are going up because juries are handing out insane verdicts that don't follow legal rules or common sense. In this guys case, a jury is likely to be sympathetic to him and even without evidence, award him money even exceeding the policy limits. So the insurance will just settle for the policy limit, and move on. Then either they will stop insuring rock climbing gyms, stipulate no auto belays are allowed, or skyrocket insurance premiums. It sucks to see so many small businesses are being killed in insurance premiums because of these crazy jury rulings. Things have gotten way worse since covid. Idk why, I think people just don't care, think insurance money falls from the sky, or just plain hate insurance companies. Either way, these things have massive consequences for the sport and daily life in general.
Skyrocketing premiums because of a single poor legal ruling in a single state is the fault of juries? This type of logic is why people hate insurance companies. The money doesn't fall from the sky, you take it from millions of businesses and individuals who never make a claim. Trying to garner sympathy for a massive insurance company is lunacy. I've never seen such a thing
@@louiehunter6490 yes, insurance companies and lawyers look at other cases to determine potential liability. If juries rule that someone who doesn’t clip in is liable to sue for millions, insurance premiums that used to only account for failure of the auto belay system now have to account for the extra risk. With the current state of the legal system I do think businesses should not have to carry bodily injury insurance anymore. If people sue the business it should be limited by the property asset cost. That way the lawyer leeches won’t take so many cases since it wouldn’t be as worth it.
@@louiehunter6490 If a jury decides an insurance company has to pay out for stupidity, not clipping in/improperly use of the device, then from that point on you can go to a gym, take a fall that will hurt, but will have you survive, and cash in that insurance money. Those cases would rise very fast, more than enough leeches around. The result would just be that no company will insure climbing anymore.
this lawsuit is probably gonna fall harder and faster than that dude did. At the gym I go to you are required to sign a waver, and take a tour/safety course before you are allowed on the wall. Also how do you just forget to clip in all the way? I am terrified of top rope (which is why I stick mostly to bouldering) and every time I clip into the auto belay, I triple check that sucker before I so much as put a hand on the wall.
i go to vertical world in seattle and they have triple action auto lockers, signs that tell you to clip in at every auto belay station, and a pretty rigorous testing/belay certification system where you have to be very confident about clipping in to be cleared for climbing. i can assure you that it was most likely this guys fault and suing the manufacturer and gym is a bit unfair.
The problem with autobelay is that there may not be a partner-check in place before you go at it. That's more dangerous than having four eyes on the setup which means the gym probably has to post staff there at all time to check if people use it correctly.
I mean regarding the liability of the gym when you improperly clip in, when I started going to a climbing gym near my student room I had to sign a paper that it was my own responsibility if I got hurt because of my incompetence (anything outside of products actually failing). How is this not normal in the US where lawsuits are so common? Edit: just got to the point where he said that you probably signed a waiver, if so how is it ever possible to sue somebody and is that part of the case not immediately dropped because with that it should be your own responsibility.
Those waivers often due not hold up in court if there is gross negligence found on the part of the party giving that waiver. What this lawsuit will determine is whether there was gross negligence on the gym's part and so the waiver is void. They could also find the climber the liable one. Waivers don't prevent lawsuits, they can prevent being found liable in lawsuits.
A waiver is basically a contract. My attorney once told me you pay attorneys a lot of money to write a contract and then you pay them a lot to figure out how to break the contract. Unfortunate.
I wish I could just assume my own risk and not have to pay for these lawsuits (cause it has to come back to the colustomer). Also, I'm pretty sure auto belays might be the safest form of climbing anyway.
Apparently it happens quite often that there are falls in climbing gyms, in the netherlands there was another death, 11 yr old kid fell to his/her death like 2 dags ago Maybe climbing gyms should start using clips with a 2-step locking system so it takes a bit more time to clip in, but then you're clipped properly.
In my old gym, there were two incidents where people were not clipped into the auto belay at all, one fatal. After the first incident, they added the triangles at the bottom and after the second they enlarged them. In my new gym, there has been the same incident recently with someone starting to climb around the corner to avoid the triangle... By its very nature, auto-belay does not allow any error
@@dmitripogosian5084It means that if you mess up, you are going to get hurt. There is nobody to double-check. You have to be aware of that and behave accordingly
If nothing broke as stated and the autobelay and harness functioned as intended then it comes down to user error and the person being irresponsible and not checking their own equipment. I'm sure there were waivers and forms that they signed to be able to climb at the gym, like any other normal gym. You are responsible for checking your own equipment. If you don't clip in properly, that's on you bud.
@@aspuzling I've never went to a gym and had to sign anything ever up until last week. Maybe in your country you have to (which given the fact that you are specifying a date leads me to believe you are either talking about the US or something) or maybe they just didn't do it here (in any of the gyms)
@@B1gLupu this was not on an autobelay, but rather at a kids party where a parent / adult was belaying them under supervision of a staff member. Based on preliminary reporting the gym staff seems not responsible, so my guess is panicking and pulling down on a grigri lever instead of letting go
Carabiners at climbing gyms are locking carabiners. The only reasonable conclusion is that this guy did not clip in. No doubt he signed a waiver, and it was his fault. This is a frivolous lawsuit.
It should be pretty clearly stated that the fact that both companies settled instead of losing is a big factor here. They didn't lose the court case they settled which is much different in means no precedent is set in court because it was not resolved in court
People defending the macdonalds lawsuit when he never specified that it was about the macdonalds. The macdonalds lawsuit was 2,7 million dollars, he said over 200 million lmao
gatekeeping a sport is dumb, there may be many cases in games etc where lack of gatekeeping ruined the hobby but I can't think of a sport where gatekeeping isn't pointless and unhelpful
The good part is that Vertical World has replaced all of their auto belays with a new brand and are letting people use them unsupervised as it should be. I am a new member and usually climb at the North location, and they have around 10 Trublue auto belays with some pretty good route setting. I always yank on the line to make sure I didn't "forget" to clip in. They also have giant fabric flags the belay lines are clipped into, which makes it nearly impossible to "forget" to clip in and start climbing, since the starting holds are all covered by the flag.
We have these in the UK as well. Often the side of the flag facing the wall is a different colour and has text indicating to a pedestrian that a climber is above them so 'get out of the way or you might have a climber fall on you'. Seems to work well.
This guy could have killed someone else falling down on him/her. Probably he should be charged for negligent endangerment oder something similar. All Autobelaydevices i have seen have either two locking carabiners (TRU-lock) or one extrasafe carabiner with additional saftybar. And you would allways attach these directly to your harness (ropering) without any personal carabiner inbetween. There where some accidents because people forgot to clip in at all, and just climbed in freesolo style, and then jumped from the top believing to be clipped in. I guess no one except them selfes should be held responsible for this.
Click bait. In my local gym the carabiner is attached to the autobelay device. It is a tri lock device. It is actually quite difficult to clip to the harness. I guess technically you could clip a carabiner to the harness and then to the carabiner on the Auto Belay but that would be pointless. I think more could be done in gyms to ensure that nobody gets onto the Autobealy for the first time without proper training and demonstrating correct technique. Honestly the first time I used the Auto Belay I was kind of nervous so you can be sure I triple checked I was clipped in and actually down climbed part way the first time.
10:30 I'm sorry but no. It's not "no one's fault". It's clearly his own fucking fault because he forgot rule number 1: check your carabiner every time you clip in. For all I'm concerned: Darwin law took almost care of him but not quite.
I respect your channel and love your news sections but maybe learn a bit more about the coffee lawsuit instead of using it as a throwaway joke. The coffee was 180°. That lady permanently messed up her genitalia because the coffee was just that hot. She was in the hospital for 8 days and had to have treatment for 2 years after. She only sued to pay for her medical bills but the court award her 2 days worth of coffee sales in punitive damages (2.7mil).
Kind of disappointed that you started your commentary with the casual dismissal of Liebeck v. McDonald as frivolous. I feel like it just kind of colors the rest of your analysis.
A climber in my gym broke their ankle while bouldering because the mats didn't cover enough of the concrete ground, but no lawsuit was filed, probably because it would end up taking down the gym and causing him to have no where to climb anymore. The climbers in the gym with the guy who sewed them must hate him.
I climb at another location of the same gym, and I don't have any ill will toward them (I have no idea who it is), as the video mentioned they settled for a reasonable amount considering how inflated our medical system's costs are. Vertical World is also awesome, they not only still have auto belays but have replaced all of them with a new brand.
my gf broke her ankle bouldering over the gap in the matts, it happens. I broke a couple ribs on a top rope route that went way out to the side of the top anchor, it happens. I can't imagine suing someone because I lost a bet on a risk I chose to take.
I ripped a hole in my leg on my motocross bike ……..can I sue the bike company? Or the guy I bought it from? Or the landowner? Or the ground or the sky………???? 🤷🏻♂️🤯🏴
@@williamcapps6120 when i go to a bouldering gym i expect matts to be solid. I don't expect there to be any gaps or whatever and i wont check the matts for gaps and holes before bouldering (since thats part of the job of the gym). I also dont expect biners or anchor to break in climbing-gyms. Ofc still something can go wrong but thats why climbing gyms have insurances. So i think there are valid reasons to sue a climbing-gym when it fails to deliver what was promised.
@@makoko6812but you have eyes don’t you? You can see the gaps, you have to actually walk on the matts for you to get to the climb regardless , you still have to post your landing
I think the whole kneepad/ aid debate is actually just as you said, it's contextual. If the FFA sent a route with a kneepad then great that's the grade. If someone comes along and does it without a kneepad and says it's harder or softer, then great that's the grade when not using a kneepad. If someone sends the route with nothing at all, well that's fucking magical and i'd have more questions for them than what the grade is haha.
3:36 "both investigation showed they were not clipped into their auto-belays correctly". Where did you get your information from? All the articles and worksafe reports on the Australian incident never discussed the actual cause behind the fall. Could you share a link to your source?
the only gym I've tried in Austrias with autobelays had not one, but two opposing side carabiners. and the typical sheet that the carabiners are attached to covers the holds up to 1m so it would be almost impossible to start climbing when not attached.
Somebody got injured from a fall in Sweden too while "climbing autobelay" about 6 years ago. The difference is that the guy here forgot to clip in altogether. He had headphones on and climbed to the top when he realized he wasn't clipped in then pumped out and fell. Can't really blame the auto-belay company/gym when you don't clip in or clip in wrong 😭😭😭 doesn't make sense to me
While it is insane this lawsuit seems to be the end of autobelaying in the US of A, I wouldn't blame the guy without knowing that's actually what he wanted. Like seriously, even just periphally knowing the healthcare and law systems of the USA makes me think that there's a good chance he was forced by circumstance to file a lawsuit. So while, yes, fuck that guy, sure, I'd also say fuck the whole system where you can't have a crippling accident without also crippling your finances and also fuck the system where people are afraid to breathe because that could become the next big lawsuit.
In my area all auto-belay devices have 2 carabiners. Also is extremely helpful not to accidentally let lose of the rope. (one carabiner is always attached somewhere)
for me personally i cannot understand how you can not see that you arent clipped in properly since when you learn to climb in germany people cant stress enough that self checking your belay and equipment before starting the climb is very important
I guess that's an upside of the gym situation in germany: There is basically no autobelay anywhere. For the most part it's lead climbing with a select few pre-installed top ropes in some beginner corner of the gym. For both of these things you need a belay partner and since people are supposed to double-check on eachother, it's essentially their own fault if they get injured. Unless something like a bolt breaks, which really never happens. This also imposes a gym culture where people scald other people for bad belay technique, inattentiveness and stuff like that, which can seem toxic, but on the other hand we are generally pretty safe.
Auto belays are great, it allows anyone to climb without needing a partner. I don't always want to belay someone, I just want to train strength and endurance, and auto belays make it MUCH more efficient and I don't have to resort to shit like bouldering. I don't always have 3 or 4 hours to burn trading belays with a partner, but I can get almost the same workout in 1/3 the time on auto belays.
@@ryanpenrod1859 Oh I'm not saying autobalys are bad. I'm just saying they don't really exist in germany, even in big, fancy gyms. We do have a gym with a 100ft lead wall nearby however.
My work hours fluctuate and I live a big distance from my climbing gym, so rarely able to get a climbing partner. For this reason I really miss having autobelays in my gym. I do love bouldering, but really miss the total wiped out pump of doing a hard sport route.
i saw a guy at my gym falling on autobelay in panick reach for the carabiner and in one motion opened the carabiner and fell to the ground. luckily he wasnt injured but it was 100% his fault for touching he carabiner while clipped on it
The auto belays I know have at least two carabiners, so that at least one is functioning correctly. The gyms I go to even have warning signs to check your carabiners are clipped in properly and in the legal statements you sign that you took a class to the right use of auto belays and clip in correctly.
Can half-clipping even happen if you're using proper, locking carabiner? I've never seen the type without a screw lock or push&turn spring lock. So basically they were using carabiners that are only safe for hanging stuff on... not your self.
Autolockers can sometimes jam in a not-quite-latched position. I see it mostly if I've got it a bit fouled with whatever I'm clipping to, but then it stays stuck when I clear the blockage. Have to twist a bit so the gate and nose can seat together properly.
Well yes and no, to turn the locking dial on a carabiner you need it to be properly closed , so an half-clipping can't happen like that (beside a freak accident inside the dial or the threaded part). On spring loaded locking carabiner there have been death/injuries thanks to users not checking (visual confirmation or giving it a tug) if the carabiner is properly closed. The last part of your post is wrong/smug as there are safe ways to use carabiners like that for personal protection
Man, all auto belays in Europe I've seen use an auto-locking carabiner. I can't imagine how possibly anyone could half clip that. These should be the standard. On the other hand, I've personally stopped climbers who were not clipped just 2-3 meters above the ground. People get distracted.
This could only happen in America. When the Autobelay has no malfunction than the mistake has to have happed be because of the climber or the Gym. I mean if the gym maby didn't take good care of their equipment the carabineer could have malfunctioned, but I don't think so because they would have found it while inspecting the autobelay. So most likely the climber didn't clipped right and than it would be his own mistake. The event was certainly tragic but the climber shouldn't get any money if it really was his own fault. So I am happy to live here in German where we still have our autobelays and no stupid chases.😅
i feel that the reason that these auto belay incidents are more common is because of the lack of buddy checks, whit an auto belay there is no one to make sure that you are safely clipped in. Everytime i am being belayd by someone they always do a check on themselves and me
Someone recently fell on an autobelay in poland as well, there's video of it, he just straight up forgot to clip in. This happens way more often than it should.
I am from Czechia and bro, this lawsuit can win just in the US -_- hope will not influence the gyms in Europe, since we just discovered these Autobelays and would love to keep them around :D cheers
The fall story is why even though i check that ive properly clipped in 15 times; my fingers still turn into 10 slimy, little slugs when i get towards the top of a top rope route 😂
In the gyms I climb at the autobelays have sensors that will beep loudly if you try to climb without clipping it at all. However, they wouldn't detect the situation where the gate is half open since you'd be putting weight on the belay system. I can imagine that it would be possible to also detect this by running a very low current through the carabiner. If the sensors detect a climber they could also detect the case where there's weight on the belay system but the gate isn't close. How exactly would this work I dunno, I'm not a mechanical/electrical engineer. Edit: Also, the autobelays all have _two_ biners on them and the orientation explains that you should clip both. I think they're there partly to prevent people letting go of the belaying end and having it shoot up the wall, but it does make this half-clipping scenario a bit less likely. You'd have to half-clip _both_ biners and then have _both_ pop when you let go at the top of the wall or fell.
Happebs here in Europe all the time. People forget to clip in or get distracted and forget to finish their knot and fall... And what kind of autobelay doesnt have 2 screw-lock biners?! Also, here ypu have to register in every gym and you also sign a document that you are responsible for your own safety and understand the risks
Idk in my gym( not a big one btw) in the past 3 years we have had like 4ish incodents that i can recall of people just falling 10m not because of autobelay problems but because they straight up forgot to use it, they just started climbing with the autobelayer still clipped to the ground. Only change that it made is that they prohibited using headphones while use the autobelay so that if you forget it they can shout at you to tell you( even tho they still let you use rhem)
Wow, that’s actually a lot of incidents. How did the people just forget about the autobelayer? I think that in most gyms it’s connected to a large mat that covers the first meter or so of the climb.
There are a couple of different systems you can use to mostly prevent this. I climb at the gym this lawsuit involved, and they now have giant red flags that the belay line is clipping to which prevent you from even reaching the starting holds unless you unclip the flag and clip into the auto belay.
The autobelay accident happend in my gym this year too (in Spain) but in this case the climber forgot to clip it to his harness 🤷♂ The climber is okay, he just broke some bones in his legs, but he obviously didn't sue, since suing for having an accident because you made a mistake is stupid
I saw a guy not clip into an auto belay and then fall 15 ft when I was in Florida. I literally held the auto belay up to him twice and he juat waved at me. Dont think he spoke english but it was tragic to watch him break his leg. Another friend also didnt clip in to the auto belay and broke his back when he fell. Hes fine now but its a lot more common than you think. That said, not the fault of the auto belay...
They didn’t really make him drive the three hours. I think it’s really good policing as it solidifies his motivation. It doesn’t take a second to change one’s mind but this psycho had three hours to.
I was climbing this morning at 30 ft. I saw a kid (10-11 y. o.) reaching this height in the route next to me without the auto belay. My heart almost exploded. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that he was lead climbing, but I couldn't see the rope at first. The biggest panic moment in my life.
I witnessed the last part of a fall from a guy who wasn't clipped into auto belay in Aus. Never clipped in and started screaming after he jumped to hit the buzzer 😐
I wouldn't be opposed to staff members checking everyone at the autobelay. It's just a partner check that we always do when belaying anyways. The problem is that people cost money, and this will probably mean they need more staff per shift, and that your membership fees will increase.
The problem is that the bills will accrue, the victim of the fall won't have the funds, so "somebody has to pay." And, bother were I live and everywhere I go, every second billboard is a personal injury attorney promising lottery winning size awards. There is no segment of the plaintiff's bar that isn't a home for such parasites. And, as in most cases, it's really the insurance company that settled and paid. People complain that insurance rates are too high, costs of places where people assume risk are too high or such places give up altogether. But then they call "1-800-claims" when any bad thing happens.
I've been present at a similar fall here in France. The guy fell 12 meters because he didn't clip in properly, multiple fractures all over his body, all the medical pofessionals basically said it was a miracle that he survived. I would say it was like 90% user error, but the gym didn't have those triangular mats at the bottom to clip the carabiner to. And I've also been present where people haven't clipped in just from being absent minded, but realised and managed to down climb.
As sorry as I am for the guy, that was not a malfunction of the device, but improper usage. When I go to a climbing Gym I need to sign a waiver that states I know what I'm doing, I have been schooled on the devices and techniques and are able to handle the equipment. Naturally, if there's gross negligence, like installed holds or anchors ripping off the wall, rope ripping or simple malfunction - I can still sue for damages, because that's equipment from the gym. Not being clipped in properly is a me issue. It is my responsibility, always, to ensure I am connected to the belay device or rope in a secure manner. If I don't know what I'm doing or if I'm unable to check that everything is done right, then I will go to someone in the gym to ask for a briefing, let them show me how to do it and how to check it, then I will clip/knot in, check the safety and then I will start the climb. I consider this mandatory behavior. I usually even do a voluntary fall from a safe height, just to check that I won't do a free dive from 30+ feet.
I’m sure I’m not going to be the only one who informs you on the coffee mishap. Mc Donald was setting its coffee well over a safe temperature. The car was not moving. Sadly she also has life changing injuries as an older lady she was lucky not to die. (Lots of the elderly are doing well then they need skin grafts and they never recover. Mc d was told to lower the temperature b4 and had a few other people scalded badly. . All the lady wanted was her medical bills to be covered. They kept having unsafe temperatures on the Racine’s. So when she went to court to try to get her care covered. The jury found she did deserve the cost. The jury also say how badly she was a injured so payed punitive damage which is basically a giant punishment to make mc Dd lower the lava pot that’s how they got their buts kicked enough to actually make them change. Mc D wouldn’t have been forced to shoot. So the gave about one days profit and mc ads isn’t just slapping caution hot as they want people to think that was the change but while they added caution and turned down the thermostat. So saying he’s got life changing issues so did the coffee storey If the belays company had multiple small injuries but didn’t bfix them till someone got f up Sadly they medical care in America is going to go through that every very fast.
When I clip into the auto belay, I always pull on the autobelay cord to ensure that the gate is closed and pulling into my harness. I also take a look at the top before dropping off.
I'm a bouldering type of guy. Every time I climb on rope (lead or toprope) I always first attach it to myself, then check twice to make sure everything is in place correctly, then I also take rope in my hand and pull it as hard as I can just to check if it works properly to do poor simulation of fall while being safe on ground. I also look at my spotter to make sure they're also properly attached. I think it's just a logical thing to do - you climb high, if you fall you might die, you need to make sure everything is safe every time you attach yourself. I don't know if that would help avoiding such accident on autobelay, but maybe it could help? Edit: same applies to bouldering outside. If you trust your buddies with crashpads, think twice. I already avoided nasty ground falls by moving crashpads while my friends were so sure that I would never fall there. I knew better where I would fall and I was right. We should also teach others how to spot. You see guys under boulder standing straight, straight legs, straight arms up. How the hell would they "catch" you (push onto crashpad) if their position doesn't give them any chances of doing so? Bent knees, lean forward and be always ready for that fall guys. And if impossible to push, save head first. Most people are really bad spotters because they don't understand why they do it. I used to do the same because I wasn't aware how important this role actually is.
Yea, this one gonna get a downvote from me dawg. If you're gonna do a whole schtick acting like a news anchor, you should probably fact-check yourself; as has already been pointed out in regards to the mcdonald's coffee incident.
A dude got injured at my gym not long ago, despite orientation, training, being checked off, multiple signs telling you to clip in, if you’re clipped in halfway and at the top of the climb, and a massive orange triangle blocking the starting footholds for the climb. Literally no clue how you manage this.
You know that lady with the coffee burns had a very legitimate lawsuit, right?
The coffee was served 50 degrees hotter than the legal limit, so she dropped it when holding the cup burned her hand. She had 3rd degree burns and had to have several skin grafts while hospitalized for over a week.
The reason public opinion labels her crazy/entitled is because McDonald's hired a PR company to make her look bad and publicly shame her.
Not just her hand. The coffee got all over her things which caused so much pain she went into shock at the scene.
and more importantly, she sued only for $20k (her medical costs). Instead, the judge decided to award her the equivalent of two days of coffee sales for mcdonalds (which was millions of dollars)
I immediately thought the same thing. It really was a life changing thing for her so it was very justified. But I understand if Climbing stuff didn't know about it cuz it was covered up a lot.
he was just using something as an example, not specifying that specific one or anything. simply saying that some people sue for way too much for things that dont deserve it.
@@LukeTCC he implied that it happens, which it does not. There are far better examples.
1:29 The coffee spill thing you mentioned in passing isn't actually how you think it is. There was a coffeemaker in a chain restaurant that made boiling coffee. As you well know, coffee isn't boiling when you pour it into your cup. The person who spilled on themself actually got second degree burns from it. There was a campaign to make the victim look stupid, and that's what you were parroting.
When I was younger and climbing, one gym had an auto-belay device with an auto-locking carabineer that had chalk in the locking device. The carabineer gate wouldn't rotate and the collar wouldn't slip up without being manually rotated. The problem wasn't the auto-belay, it was the carabineer.
Ghyttf
I know you don't mean any ill intent by it, but you should probably read the Wikipedia page for "Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants" before joking about spilled coffee. McDonalds was serving coffee hot enough to cause third degree burns in 3 seconds of contact. The woman was hospitalized for eight days after spilling it in her lap. She was also only asking McDonalds for $20k to cover her medical expenses.
My gym took out their auto belays on the 50ft walls because of this. We only have them on the 25ft walls now. We also installed these GINORMOUS signs you have to unclip the auto belay from before you can clip onto your harness.
damn, I briefly worked a zipline guide and that kind of half clipped sticky carabiner was my nightmare
He didn’t mention this, but the gym owner did NOT want to settle because he felt the lawsuit was frivolous. However, since it was the gym’s insurance company that was handling the lawsuit, they decided to settle.
So the gym didn’t want to settle, its insurance company did. The statement released by the injured man’s lawyers was misleading.
I can understand why they would settle tbf. Afaik, if they don't go to court, it doesn't set precedent. So they don't risk legally making climbing gyms responsible for people's safety if the judge ruled against them. Which for a climbing insurance company would be a ballache
I actually was there when a dude in my gym realised at the top (15meters) that he didn't clip in, he basically went up free soloing the route. Lucly I yelled at him to stop, because the last move was a jump. And also luckily, he was climbing in a corner so he could wait safely with good balance that someone climbed up with two systems and helped him clipping in....
Long story short, I'm still traumatised from witnessing this scene, and now I triple check if I'm attached
yea, I have a similar story but the thing is I just heard a scream, I just had the time to turn my head and saw a girl falling like 15 meters. Luckily she didn't die but had serious wounds as she fell on a really thin matress (hopefully not solid ground otherwise whe would be dead). There was a small investigation and all leads to the fact that she simply didn't clip at all....
@@wicowan she coulld maybe sue for the mattress safety, depending on whether it was reasonably sized or not.
My climbing partner is a lot lighter than me, so we need to prep for that before climbing
Once I got like halfway up the rope before she realised and called me to climb down
Nowhere near as severe, but definitely shook us
Forgetting to clip in at all would be a nightmare scenario
What kind of setup do you guys have there? In the gyms I go to each auto belay is attached to a large mat covering the start of the route (vertically, against the wall) and there are signs saying things to the effect of "Are you clipped in?". So if someone were to forget to clip in they would have to bypass the mat and miss the signs.. not to mention contend with the rope of the extended auto belay.
@KhelbenGeldon once you climb enough you stop noticing the signage and stuff
It's quite easy to get lax with your checks even if you do do them, and you basically autopilot through the motion.
It's why it's so important to stay alert, and dont let yourself autopilot.
I expect to still be climbing at 77. I started climbing at 64 and will be 68 this month. I climb 3 days a week.
Cool! I'm 40, started about half year ago. And hope to still be climbing at 77 :) (happy birthday!)
well I started climbing at 9 and I don't know if I will still have fingers at 77 lmao (21 rn)
I love how you brought up the coffee lawsuit. She was awarded way more than she sued for because Maccas had heaps of complaints against them, and the coffee was so hot in permanently damaged her genitalia. It was life changing for that woman.
And douche-bros out here slagging her off. It's infuriating.
Doctors thought she could die! Greatest PR campaign of the 80's got everyone to say Stella Liebeck was in the wrong
@@lasagnahog7695anyone who hates on her just doesn’t know as much about it as you, wouldn’t get worked up abt it lol
Its not that people don't believe she was injured. It's that people understand it's her fault she got burned. Coffee is hot. It was that hot every time she got it and everyone else can consume coffee without permanently damaging their own genitals. So winning a lawsuit simply because coffee IS hot is ridiculous. Noone thinks the coffee wasn't hot, just that she shouldn't have marinated her crotch in it and shouldn't be able to blame a restaurant for coffee being a hot drink
@@louiehunter6490 "McDonald also said during discovery that, based on a consultant’s advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit to maintain optimum taste. He admitted that he had not evaluated the safety ramifications at this temperature. Other establishments sell coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees. Futher, Mcdonald’s quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above and that Mcdonald's coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into Styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the “holding temperature” of its coffee." They were not serving a "hot drink" they were serving fucking lava when they knew it would melt through your skin (btw you troglodyte there were multiple cases of the WORKERS causing the spills via loose lids and one where they spilled it on a woman in her car ALSO numerous instances of children getting burned) they FINALLY start serving it at a normal 158 degrees after the lawsuit you barely know anything about
I’m glad to see so many comments about the coffee burn situation. It breaks my heart that McDonald’s had such a successful smear campaign against a woman who got 3rd degree burns from entirely too hot coffee.
I have no idea what happened in the coffe-case but there must be some misunderstanding here. Coffe can not be hotter than a 100°C and that is not hot enough to give third degree burns. If poured on someone they would get second degree burns, which of course is not nice either.
@@JacobLikesMusic 100° is definitely enough to give 3rd degree burns, it'll even be pretty fast. According to a couple of fire department websites I checked it only takes around one second to get a 3rd degree burn in ~70° water.
@@adrian9048 I stand corrected. I did some googling too, and it seems you can get third degree burn from exposure to boiling hot water (and less). Usually if you spill, the exposure is so short that it won't happen. But if there is longer exposure then apparently, yes.
@@JacobLikesMusic
She dropped the coffee in her lap while sat in her car so she was in contact with a pool of the hot liquid for longer than if it had been able to run off of her.
There's a RUclips video about how mcdonalds had a coffee machine that was brewing 220 degree coffee and knew it. The attorneys for mcds intentionally led the public to believe it wasn't their fault.
Someone recently broke their bone bouldering at my gym. How can autobelay companies keep doing this 😢
Is this sarcasm?
@@duncanfromunderthebridgeDuncan from under the bridge
@@duncanfromunderthebridge yeah, it's gotta be. its also a really funny comment, i love this one 😂
Lmao, I commented before I finished the video. I was like no one could be so dense.
@@NillocFDso you admit that bouldering gyms deliberately omit critical safety systems?
At our gym they moved to a double carabiner a few years ago. They clip-in in opposite directions. Thought it was dumb at the time but I guess this is why.
Damn. My gym has double carabiners since i was a tennager. About 9 years ago. For me thats just standart. If the Gyms mentioned in the video didn't have double biners(wich is unlikely) that would indeed be pretty stupid by them.
And aren’t the carabiners they use supposed to be triple action carabiners? Like pull down, twist, push
(Doubling up is never really gonna be a bad idea either way though)
@@littledrummergirl_19if someone’s forgetting to clip in the first carabiner they’re not gonna remember to clip the second one right beside it
Please look up the McDonald coffee lawsuit before using it as an example of rampant lawsuit. What you parroted is the deformed, PR version from McDonald. The lady had incredibly serious third degree burns on her thighs and genitals from a coffee served KNOWINGLY much, much hotter than regulation. She only wanted to sue to cover her medical expanses and it's actually the judge who awarded her the equivalent of one or two days (can't remember) of coffee sales at McDonald when he learned that the McDonald the lady had gone to knew about the problem and had already received complaints.
Don't fall for McDonald PR and smear campaign
However I agree that this lawsuit is stupid and who knows how it might affect climbing gyms...
Even more than the seriousness of the injuries, what really makes this bad for McDonald's is that they intentionally made the coffee too hot, to force people to wait for it to cool down, in order to discourage free refills. They charged extra for "free refill" coffee but then put hurdles in the way as cost cutting measures, and people were hurt by their greediness.
I think the most important detail is the waiver. By default, somebody who climbs auto-belay independently has passed orientation and is responsible for ensuring their own safety and checking the gear before climbing.
Waivers contents don't really matter because people in these catastrophic injury cases its always depends on if there was negligence and if there is the waiver doesn't matter. You can look at it like this: If the gym could have done something reasonably easy to prevent the injury like for example a safety briefing on clipping in correctly and did not do that then its negligence and they will get a % of fault.
@@emperorsascharoni9577 So why do they make you sign a waiver? Every climbing gym waiver I've ever signed has said that you assume responsibility for the risk that you might die or become severely injured/disabled. I'm not saying you're wrong, I just want to know why the waiver would even exist because I hate having to sign waivers!
@@_415_
My dad lost a finger years ago at a skatepark in a freak accident.
Basically, during a fall his wedding ring caught on a screw that the skatepark hadn’t drilled in all the way and it wound up de-gloving/breaking off part of his finger.
Was the skatepark negligent in not maintaining their equipment? Big time. That place was a mess and had rusty tetanus metal sticking out all over the place but when he sought legal action against them it didn’t matter because he had signed a waiver stating that it was up to the skater/rider to determine what was and wasn’t safe.
That alone essentially made it airtight and he never got a dime from them.
Their waiver was also WAY less lengthy than the typical ones I’ve had to fill out to climb in gyms.
I feel like they’re pretty strict with that shit for a reason and you’d need a high profile lawyer to get anywhere.
@@_415_It’s not that waivers are irrelevant or useless, it’s just when a case of that magnitude starts getting washed through the legal system (and lawyers) they’re able to start chipping away at discrepancies.
@ It absolves gym from some responsibility but not all. Gym still can not be negligent. For instance, if gym forgets to fasten the holds properly and somebody falls, it is still liable, and you cannot sign this your right off.
In my gym there is a system with the autobelay that doesn't let you climb if you're not properly attached. The autobelay wire is attached to a sort of gate which blocks you from going to the starting holds.You can push the gate away only if you attach the autobelay correctly. It's practically impossible to fail attaching the autobelay.
Additionaly bonus for beginners is that the risk of letting go of the cable and the autobelay pulling the wire up the wall is also eliminated.
I think most gyms should have a system like that.
Should just have it in a contract with a little boulder pad to ask them to jump down from the first hold and maybe like a voice recording so that when try to climb by moving the triangular mat it will say "Step one clip in Step 2 step up and Step 3 jump as high off the first foot hold and land on the mat... If they dont follow the procedure then they get their rights are revoked
My gym has that too
Here in the UK, in a gym I have been, you need to be supervised by an expert even to auto belay. The "expert" can be anyone who passed a test, where you need to demonstrate you can effectively belay. So, a noob can't really climb auto belay, not if not supervised by someone who is more experienced. I think that should be the rule if a system like you have described is not in place.
Jeez guys, you all own a gym, you are like Sharma and Ondra...@@hynesherlihy2145
@@biomorphicdo the "experts" need someone to supervise them too? Cause if not I think most places do that. The people who died or hurt themselves on auto belay most likely are people who were trained in it, they just slipped up unfortunately.
Ngl I worked at a rock gym and people actually either forgot to clip in to the auto belays or just straight up thought god had them on top rope 😂
"god had them on top rope" gave me such a good laugh lmfao
Maybe it's because I do climbing professionally in Industrial compounds (Factories, Malls, Towers, etc.) that it seems crazy to me, but this shouldn't happen and if it happens YOU are at fault, YOU need to check your gear and if you are not a seasoned climber, you NEED to have a buddy check, there is no excuse for this, the half-clip happens a lot, especially in my job, but there is NO WAY you'd EVER go up anywhere with that, if you can miss that, you shouldn't be doing anything dangerous that needs YOU to make sure you are safe.
Climbing Gear has gotten so good that the possibility of failure without human interference or misuse is nearly 0%.
I am sorry if this is shitty towards the person that fell or their family, but sometimes we need the hard truth, my condolences still go out and I hope the person has made a good recovery!
100%
Exactly!
If you have amateurs using auto belay devices, just change it so that you have carabiners which lock explicitly and maybe use a second like you have to clip in, too. Would reduce chance of failure for non routine climbers by a lot.
i really disliked you using the spilling coffee on yourself example since you do not know that actual story of the McD incident
The coffee McDonald’s thing was really bad if you look it up
Insurance actuary here. There is something called social inflation, where claims costs are going up because juries are handing out insane verdicts that don't follow legal rules or common sense. In this guys case, a jury is likely to be sympathetic to him and even without evidence, award him money even exceeding the policy limits. So the insurance will just settle for the policy limit, and move on. Then either they will stop insuring rock climbing gyms, stipulate no auto belays are allowed, or skyrocket insurance premiums. It sucks to see so many small businesses are being killed in insurance premiums because of these crazy jury rulings. Things have gotten way worse since covid. Idk why, I think people just don't care, think insurance money falls from the sky, or just plain hate insurance companies. Either way, these things have massive consequences for the sport and daily life in general.
Skyrocketing premiums because of a single poor legal ruling in a single state is the fault of juries? This type of logic is why people hate insurance companies. The money doesn't fall from the sky, you take it from millions of businesses and individuals who never make a claim. Trying to garner sympathy for a massive insurance company is lunacy. I've never seen such a thing
By the way you are right about one thing. People just don't care about the woes of insanely profitable, morally suspect insurance companies
@@louiehunter6490 yes, insurance companies and lawyers look at other cases to determine potential liability. If juries rule that someone who doesn’t clip in is liable to sue for millions, insurance premiums that used to only account for failure of the auto belay system now have to account for the extra risk.
With the current state of the legal system I do think businesses should not have to carry bodily injury insurance anymore. If people sue the business it should be limited by the property asset cost. That way the lawyer leeches won’t take so many cases since it wouldn’t be as worth it.
@@louiehunter6490 If a jury decides an insurance company has to pay out for stupidity, not clipping in/improperly use of the device, then from that point on you can go to a gym, take a fall that will hurt, but will have you survive, and cash in that insurance money. Those cases would rise very fast, more than enough leeches around. The result would just be that no company will insure climbing anymore.
this lawsuit is probably gonna fall harder and faster than that dude did. At the gym I go to you are required to sign a waver, and take a tour/safety course before you are allowed on the wall. Also how do you just forget to clip in all the way? I am terrified of top rope (which is why I stick mostly to bouldering) and every time I clip into the auto belay, I triple check that sucker before I so much as put a hand on the wall.
i go to vertical world in seattle and they have triple action auto lockers, signs that tell you to clip in at every auto belay station, and a pretty rigorous testing/belay certification system where you have to be very confident about clipping in to be cleared for climbing. i can assure you that it was most likely this guys fault and suing the manufacturer and gym is a bit unfair.
There’s a dude at my gym who forgot to clip in, fell and broke his knees. He still climbs autobelay at the gym pretty much every day lol
The problem with autobelay is that there may not be a partner-check in place before you go at it. That's more dangerous than having four eyes on the setup which means the gym probably has to post staff there at all time to check if people use it correctly.
I mean regarding the liability of the gym when you improperly clip in, when I started going to a climbing gym near my student room I had to sign a paper that it was my own responsibility if I got hurt because of my incompetence (anything outside of products actually failing). How is this not normal in the US where lawsuits are so common?
Edit: just got to the point where he said that you probably signed a waiver, if so how is it ever possible to sue somebody and is that part of the case not immediately dropped because with that it should be your own responsibility.
Those waivers often due not hold up in court if there is gross negligence found on the part of the party giving that waiver. What this lawsuit will determine is whether there was gross negligence on the gym's part and so the waiver is void. They could also find the climber the liable one.
Waivers don't prevent lawsuits, they can prevent being found liable in lawsuits.
Yeah I think every gym makes you sign a waiver
A waiver is basically a contract. My attorney once told me you pay attorneys a lot of money to write a contract and then you pay them a lot to figure out how to break the contract. Unfortunate.
I wish I could just assume my own risk and not have to pay for these lawsuits (cause it has to come back to the colustomer). Also, I'm pretty sure auto belays might be the safest form of climbing anyway.
Apparently it happens quite often that there are falls in climbing gyms, in the netherlands there was another death, 11 yr old kid fell to his/her death like 2 dags ago
Maybe climbing gyms should start using clips with a 2-step locking system so it takes a bit more time to clip in, but then you're clipped properly.
@@MarliesReukers have not top-roped before (just bouldering), so i didn't know, but good that they have such measures in place
If you think about it, having arms counts as aid.
funny to think no one has finsihed the video yet
bringing up the mcdonalds too hot thing was a pretty big L, that was highly propaganized lawsuit, and mcdonalds was very much in the wrong
Seb Bouin in shambles rn after only being known as "guy in kneepads"
In my old gym, there were two incidents where people were not clipped into the auto belay at all, one fatal. After the first incident, they added the triangles at the bottom and after the second they enlarged them. In my new gym, there has been the same incident recently with someone starting to climb around the corner to avoid the triangle...
By its very nature, auto-belay does not allow any error
You just gave three examples when errors were allowed, what does your last statement mean ?
@@dmitripogosian5084It means that if you mess up, you are going to get hurt. There is nobody to double-check. You have to be aware of that and behave accordingly
If nothing broke as stated and the autobelay and harness functioned as intended then it comes down to user error and the person being irresponsible and not checking their own equipment. I'm sure there were waivers and forms that they signed to be able to climb at the gym, like any other normal gym. You are responsible for checking your own equipment. If you don't clip in properly, that's on you bud.
My gym now requested us to sign a liability form, it was a bit random but maybe it was because of this incident (and they only have bouldering)
Nah, that was long before the incident. At least 3 gyms I climb in Haifa are requesting it for a long time.
@@kirsaakov8808 ?? I was talking about my gym, not yours. Mine started requesting us this week
Every gym since the 80s has required this.
@@aspuzling I've never went to a gym and had to sign anything ever up until last week. Maybe in your country you have to (which given the fact that you are specifying a date leads me to believe you are either talking about the US or something) or maybe they just didn't do it here (in any of the gyms)
Bro someone died last friday in a climbing gym by falling 11 meters, here in the Netherlands.
That's sad, just looked it up, 11 year old kid
It's really terrible...
I would actually suggest taking this video down for a few days. Your Dutch viewers would really appreciate that.
Do you know what was the cause? Faulty machine or did the lock come undone?
@@B1gLupu this was not on an autobelay, but rather at a kids party where a parent / adult was belaying them under supervision of a staff member. Based on preliminary reporting the gym staff seems not responsible, so my guess is panicking and pulling down on a grigri lever instead of letting go
Carabiners at climbing gyms are locking carabiners. The only reasonable conclusion is that this guy did not clip in. No doubt he signed a waiver, and it was his fault. This is a frivolous lawsuit.
The guy who downgraded lapsus has a name it's Seb Bouin a pretty well known climber
One of the first climbers, if not the first, to climb a 9b I think
It should be pretty clearly stated that the fact that both companies settled instead of losing is a big factor here. They didn't lose the court case they settled which is much different in means no precedent is set in court because it was not resolved in court
Shoes are indeed aid. So are clothes. Climb naked.
Also funny you mention Charlie bc you remind me of him but for climbing.
People defending the macdonalds lawsuit when he never specified that it was about the macdonalds. The macdonalds lawsuit was 2,7 million dollars, he said over 200 million lmao
I just got my dad into rock climbing, he's 66. Also I never encountered any gatekeeping, everyone is so welcoming and helpful.
gatekeeping a sport is dumb, there may be many cases in games etc where lack of gatekeeping ruined the hobby but I can't think of a sport where gatekeeping isn't pointless and unhelpful
The good part is that Vertical World has replaced all of their auto belays with a new brand and are letting people use them unsupervised as it should be. I am a new member and usually climb at the North location, and they have around 10 Trublue auto belays with some pretty good route setting. I always yank on the line to make sure I didn't "forget" to clip in. They also have giant fabric flags the belay lines are clipped into, which makes it nearly impossible to "forget" to clip in and start climbing, since the starting holds are all covered by the flag.
We have these in the UK as well. Often the side of the flag facing the wall is a different colour and has text indicating to a pedestrian that a climber is above them so 'get out of the way or you might have a climber fall on you'. Seems to work well.
This guy could have killed someone else falling down on him/her. Probably he should be charged for negligent endangerment oder something similar. All Autobelaydevices i have seen have either two locking carabiners (TRU-lock) or one extrasafe carabiner with additional saftybar. And you would allways attach these directly to your harness (ropering) without any personal carabiner inbetween. There where some accidents because people forgot to clip in at all, and just climbed in freesolo style, and then jumped from the top believing to be clipped in. I guess no one except them selfes should be held responsible for this.
“6 million dollars is the amount you’ll need to cover medical bills for the rest of your life” 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Click bait. In my local gym the carabiner is attached to the autobelay device. It is a tri lock device. It is actually quite difficult to clip to the harness. I guess technically you could clip a carabiner to the harness and then to the carabiner on the Auto Belay but that would be pointless.
I think more could be done in gyms to ensure that nobody gets onto the Autobealy for the first time without proper training and demonstrating correct technique.
Honestly the first time I used the Auto Belay I was kind of nervous so you can be sure I triple checked I was clipped in and actually down climbed part way the first time.
I fucked up, GIVE ME YOUR MONEY!
10:30
I'm sorry but no. It's not "no one's fault". It's clearly his own fucking fault because he forgot rule number 1: check your carabiner every time you clip in. For all I'm concerned: Darwin law took almost care of him but not quite.
I respect your channel and love your news sections but maybe learn a bit more about the coffee lawsuit instead of using it as a throwaway joke.
The coffee was 180°. That lady permanently messed up her genitalia because the coffee was just that hot. She was in the hospital for 8 days and had to have treatment for 2 years after. She only sued to pay for her medical bills but the court award her 2 days worth of coffee sales in punitive damages (2.7mil).
Kind of disappointed that you started your commentary with the casual dismissal of Liebeck v. McDonald as frivolous. I feel like it just kind of colors the rest of your analysis.
If youre not climbing with a locking carabiner, youre not climbing properly and you are 100% at fault for your own fall.
A climber in my gym broke their ankle while bouldering because the mats didn't cover enough of the concrete ground, but no lawsuit was filed, probably because it would end up taking down the gym and causing him to have no where to climb anymore. The climbers in the gym with the guy who sewed them must hate him.
I climb at another location of the same gym, and I don't have any ill will toward them (I have no idea who it is), as the video mentioned they settled for a reasonable amount considering how inflated our medical system's costs are. Vertical World is also awesome, they not only still have auto belays but have replaced all of them with a new brand.
my gf broke her ankle bouldering over the gap in the matts, it happens. I broke a couple ribs on a top rope route that went way out to the side of the top anchor, it happens. I can't imagine suing someone because I lost a bet on a risk I chose to take.
I ripped a hole in my leg on my motocross bike ……..can I sue the bike company? Or the guy I bought it from? Or the landowner? Or the ground or the sky………???? 🤷🏻♂️🤯🏴
@@williamcapps6120 when i go to a bouldering gym i expect matts to be solid. I don't expect there to be any gaps or whatever and i wont check the matts for gaps and holes before bouldering (since thats part of the job of the gym). I also dont expect biners or anchor to break in climbing-gyms. Ofc still something can go wrong but thats why climbing gyms have insurances. So i think there are valid reasons to sue a climbing-gym when it fails to deliver what was promised.
@@makoko6812but you have eyes don’t you? You can see the gaps, you have to actually walk on the matts for you to get to the climb regardless , you still have to post your landing
I think the whole kneepad/ aid debate is actually just as you said, it's contextual. If the FFA sent a route with a kneepad then great that's the grade. If someone comes along and does it without a kneepad and says it's harder or softer, then great that's the grade when not using a kneepad. If someone sends the route with nothing at all, well that's fucking magical and i'd have more questions for them than what the grade is haha.
I stopped watching after the awful McDonalds lawsuit comparison
Doesn’t even acknowledge it in the comments
3:36 "both investigation showed they were not clipped into their auto-belays correctly". Where did you get your information from? All the articles and worksafe reports on the Australian incident never discussed the actual cause behind the fall. Could you share a link to your source?
Such lawsuits are not possible in Austria, so we will keep our devices ;-)
the only gym I've tried in Austrias with autobelays had not one, but two opposing side carabiners. and the typical sheet that the carabiners are attached to covers the holds up to 1m so it would be almost impossible to start climbing when not attached.
@@mikel.mp4same in my gym in the Netherlands, with the sheets. Almost impossible to start the climb without being attached.
Somebody got injured from a fall in Sweden too while "climbing autobelay" about 6 years ago. The difference is that the guy here forgot to clip in altogether. He had headphones on and climbed to the top when he realized he wasn't clipped in then pumped out and fell.
Can't really blame the auto-belay company/gym when you don't clip in or clip in wrong 😭😭😭 doesn't make sense to me
Just moved to Sweden this year and was surprised that I needed a certification to use the auto belay. How long has it been like this?
whether you can or cannpt blame - that's what for courts to decide
While it is insane this lawsuit seems to be the end of autobelaying in the US of A, I wouldn't blame the guy without knowing that's actually what he wanted. Like seriously, even just periphally knowing the healthcare and law systems of the USA makes me think that there's a good chance he was forced by circumstance to file a lawsuit. So while, yes, fuck that guy, sure, I'd also say fuck the whole system where you can't have a crippling accident without also crippling your finances and also fuck the system where people are afraid to breathe because that could become the next big lawsuit.
In my area all auto-belay devices have 2 carabiners. Also is extremely helpful not to accidentally let lose of the rope. (one carabiner is always attached somewhere)
Right? I thought it would be like that everywhere. Also they are safety carbiners, you would really need to mishandle them for this to happen.
for me personally i cannot understand how you can not see that you arent clipped in properly since when you learn to climb in germany people cant stress enough that self checking your belay and equipment before starting the climb is very important
Well, it is stressed a lot during the training how to safely drive a car, people still get into accidents
In the Netherlands last week, some kid died because he wasn't strapped in correctly
I guess that's an upside of the gym situation in germany: There is basically no autobelay anywhere. For the most part it's lead climbing with a select few pre-installed top ropes in some beginner corner of the gym. For both of these things you need a belay partner and since people are supposed to double-check on eachother, it's essentially their own fault if they get injured. Unless something like a bolt breaks, which really never happens.
This also imposes a gym culture where people scald other people for bad belay technique, inattentiveness and stuff like that, which can seem toxic, but on the other hand we are generally pretty safe.
That just sounds german.
Auto belays are great, it allows anyone to climb without needing a partner. I don't always want to belay someone, I just want to train strength and endurance, and auto belays make it MUCH more efficient and I don't have to resort to shit like bouldering. I don't always have 3 or 4 hours to burn trading belays with a partner, but I can get almost the same workout in 1/3 the time on auto belays.
@@ryanpenrod1859 Oh I'm not saying autobalys are bad. I'm just saying they don't really exist in germany, even in big, fancy gyms. We do have a gym with a 100ft lead wall nearby however.
My work hours fluctuate and I live a big distance from my climbing gym, so rarely able to get a climbing partner. For this reason I really miss having autobelays in my gym. I do love bouldering, but really miss the total wiped out pump of doing a hard sport route.
I live in berlin and there are autobelays in gyms here.
i saw a guy at my gym falling on autobelay in panick reach for the carabiner and in one motion opened the carabiner and fell to the ground. luckily he wasnt injured but it was 100% his fault for touching he carabiner while clipped on it
The auto belays I know have at least two carabiners, so that at least one is functioning correctly. The gyms I go to even have warning signs to check your carabiners are clipped in properly and in the legal statements you sign that you took a class to the right use of auto belays and clip in correctly.
Can half-clipping even happen if you're using proper, locking carabiner? I've never seen the type without a screw lock or push&turn spring lock. So basically they were using carabiners that are only safe for hanging stuff on... not your self.
Autolockers can sometimes jam in a not-quite-latched position. I see it mostly if I've got it a bit fouled with whatever I'm clipping to, but then it stays stuck when I clear the blockage. Have to twist a bit so the gate and nose can seat together properly.
Well yes and no, to turn the locking dial on a carabiner you need it to be properly closed , so an half-clipping can't happen like that (beside a freak accident inside the dial or the threaded part).
On spring loaded locking carabiner there have been death/injuries thanks to users not checking (visual confirmation or giving it a tug) if the carabiner is properly closed.
The last part of your post is wrong/smug as there are safe ways to use carabiners like that for personal protection
Man, all auto belays in Europe I've seen use an auto-locking carabiner. I can't imagine how possibly anyone could half clip that. These should be the standard. On the other hand, I've personally stopped climbers who were not clipped just 2-3 meters above the ground. People get distracted.
This could only happen in America. When the Autobelay has no malfunction than the mistake has to have happed be because of the climber or the Gym. I mean if the gym maby didn't take good care of their equipment the carabineer could have malfunctioned, but I don't think so because they would have found it while inspecting the autobelay. So most likely the climber didn't clipped right and than it would be his own mistake. The event was certainly tragic but the climber shouldn't get any money if it really was his own fault. So I am happy to live here in German where we still have our autobelays and no stupid chases.😅
How much hospital and rehabilitation will cost in Germany ?
i feel that the reason that these auto belay incidents are more common is because of the lack of buddy checks, whit an auto belay there is no one to make sure that you are safely clipped in. Everytime i am being belayd by someone they always do a check on themselves and me
Well it’s fucken common sense to clip in😂 you gotta be ducking stupid to not clip in like wtf
The lack of buddy checks is exactly why my local gym doesn't use them
And this is why I prefer top rope! But i'll still use the auto belays.. two person safety checks seem lame until you hear about stories like this.
If you climb long enough, partner checks eventually catch a screwup. After that, they never seem lame.
Someone recently fell on an autobelay in poland as well, there's video of it, he just straight up forgot to clip in. This happens way more often than it should.
I am from Czechia and bro, this lawsuit can win just in the US -_- hope will not influence the gyms in Europe, since we just discovered these Autobelays and would love to keep them around :D cheers
You are responsible for your own safety.
The fall story is why even though i check that ive properly clipped in 15 times; my fingers still turn into 10 slimy, little slugs when i get towards the top of a top rope route 😂
In the gyms I climb at the autobelays have sensors that will beep loudly if you try to climb without clipping it at all. However, they wouldn't detect the situation where the gate is half open since you'd be putting weight on the belay system. I can imagine that it would be possible to also detect this by running a very low current through the carabiner. If the sensors detect a climber they could also detect the case where there's weight on the belay system but the gate isn't close. How exactly would this work I dunno, I'm not a mechanical/electrical engineer.
Edit: Also, the autobelays all have _two_ biners on them and the orientation explains that you should clip both. I think they're there partly to prevent people letting go of the belaying end and having it shoot up the wall, but it does make this half-clipping scenario a bit less likely. You'd have to half-clip _both_ biners and then have _both_ pop when you let go at the top of the wall or fell.
Here in Germany we‘d probably just be like „ohh no unfortunate, but you shoulda checked your carabiner mate“
My friends’ and my motto is, we signed a waiver for a reason! Especially when goofing around doing dynos and other things that aren’t intended
Happebs here in Europe all the time. People forget to clip in or get distracted and forget to finish their knot and fall...
And what kind of autobelay doesnt have 2 screw-lock biners?!
Also, here ypu have to register in every gym and you also sign a document that you are responsible for your own safety and understand the risks
Why does this guy remind me of Idubbz?
Idk in my gym( not a big one btw) in the past 3 years we have had like 4ish incodents that i can recall of people just falling 10m not because of autobelay problems but because they straight up forgot to use it, they just started climbing with the autobelayer still clipped to the ground.
Only change that it made is that they prohibited using headphones while use the autobelay so that if you forget it they can shout at you to tell you( even tho they still let you use rhem)
Wow, that’s actually a lot of incidents. How did the people just forget about the autobelayer? I think that in most gyms it’s connected to a large mat that covers the first meter or so of the climb.
There are a couple of different systems you can use to mostly prevent this. I climb at the gym this lawsuit involved, and they now have giant red flags that the belay line is clipping to which prevent you from even reaching the starting holds unless you unclip the flag and clip into the auto belay.
@@avrilyu ikr its absoutelly insine, its quite hard to miss,
The autobelay accident happend in my gym this year too (in Spain) but in this case the climber forgot to clip it to his harness 🤷♂ The climber is okay, he just broke some bones in his legs, but he obviously didn't sue, since suing for having an accident because you made a mistake is stupid
America lol...
Does he have medical bills ?
@@dmitripogosian5084 No, Spain has Universal Healthcare
I saw a guy not clip into an auto belay and then fall 15 ft when I was in Florida. I literally held the auto belay up to him twice and he juat waved at me. Dont think he spoke english but it was tragic to watch him break his leg.
Another friend also didnt clip in to the auto belay and broke his back when he fell. Hes fine now but its a lot more common than you think. That said, not the fault of the auto belay...
They didn’t really make him drive the three hours. I think it’s really good policing as it solidifies his motivation. It doesn’t take a second to change one’s mind but this psycho had three hours to.
Locking carabiner?!?!
This video is clickbait. Just because some gyms use autobelays doesn’t mean the lawsuit will be the end for all rock gyms
Bro 😂😂
No dip Sherlock doesn't mean the vid is bad
I don't know why someone in a suit bringing us climbing news is so cool but well it is
2:50 - 2:54 i am sorry
I was climbing this morning at 30 ft. I saw a kid (10-11 y. o.) reaching this height in the route next to me without the auto belay. My heart almost exploded. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that he was lead climbing, but I couldn't see the rope at first. The biggest panic moment in my life.
This might be on of the best channels on youtube. Good job bro, you are amazing
I witnessed the last part of a fall from a guy who wasn't clipped into auto belay in Aus.
Never clipped in and started screaming after he jumped to hit the buzzer 😐
I wouldn't be opposed to staff members checking everyone at the autobelay. It's just a partner check that we always do when belaying anyways. The problem is that people cost money, and this will probably mean they need more staff per shift, and that your membership fees will increase.
The problem is that the bills will accrue, the victim of the fall won't have the funds, so "somebody has to pay." And, bother were I live and everywhere I go, every second billboard is a personal injury attorney promising lottery winning size awards. There is no segment of the plaintiff's bar that isn't a home for such parasites. And, as in most cases, it's really the insurance company that settled and paid. People complain that insurance rates are too high, costs of places where people assume risk are too high or such places give up altogether. But then they call "1-800-claims" when any bad thing happens.
I've been present at a similar fall here in France. The guy fell 12 meters because he didn't clip in properly, multiple fractures all over his body, all the medical pofessionals basically said it was a miracle that he survived. I would say it was like 90% user error, but the gym didn't have those triangular mats at the bottom to clip the carabiner to. And I've also been present where people haven't clipped in just from being absent minded, but realised and managed to down climb.
As sorry as I am for the guy, that was not a malfunction of the device, but improper usage. When I go to a climbing Gym I need to sign a waiver that states I know what I'm doing, I have been schooled on the devices and techniques and are able to handle the equipment. Naturally, if there's gross negligence, like installed holds or anchors ripping off the wall, rope ripping or simple malfunction - I can still sue for damages, because that's equipment from the gym.
Not being clipped in properly is a me issue. It is my responsibility, always, to ensure I am connected to the belay device or rope in a secure manner. If I don't know what I'm doing or if I'm unable to check that everything is done right, then I will go to someone in the gym to ask for a briefing, let them show me how to do it and how to check it, then I will clip/knot in, check the safety and then I will start the climb. I consider this mandatory behavior. I usually even do a voluntary fall from a safe height, just to check that I won't do a free dive from 30+ feet.
I’m sure I’m not going to be the only one who informs you on the coffee mishap. Mc Donald was setting its coffee well over a safe temperature. The car was not moving. Sadly she also has life changing injuries as an older lady she was lucky not to die. (Lots of the elderly are doing well then they need skin grafts and they never recover. Mc d was told to lower the temperature b4 and had a few other people scalded badly. . All the lady wanted was her medical bills to be covered. They kept having unsafe temperatures on the Racine’s. So when she went to court to try to get her care covered. The jury found she did deserve the cost. The jury also say how badly she was a injured so payed punitive damage which is basically a giant punishment to make mc Dd lower the lava pot that’s how they got their buts kicked enough to actually make them change. Mc D wouldn’t have been forced to shoot. So the gave about one days profit and mc ads isn’t just slapping caution hot as they want people to think that was the change but while they added caution and turned down the thermostat. So saying he’s got life changing issues so did the coffee storey If the belays company had multiple small injuries but didn’t bfix them till someone got f up Sadly they medical care in America is going to go through that every very fast.
When I clip into the auto belay, I always pull on the autobelay cord to ensure that the gate is closed and pulling into my harness. I also take a look at the top before dropping off.
I'm a bouldering type of guy. Every time I climb on rope (lead or toprope) I always first attach it to myself, then check twice to make sure everything is in place correctly, then I also take rope in my hand and pull it as hard as I can just to check if it works properly to do poor simulation of fall while being safe on ground. I also look at my spotter to make sure they're also properly attached. I think it's just a logical thing to do - you climb high, if you fall you might die, you need to make sure everything is safe every time you attach yourself. I don't know if that would help avoiding such accident on autobelay, but maybe it could help?
Edit: same applies to bouldering outside. If you trust your buddies with crashpads, think twice. I already avoided nasty ground falls by moving crashpads while my friends were so sure that I would never fall there. I knew better where I would fall and I was right. We should also teach others how to spot. You see guys under boulder standing straight, straight legs, straight arms up. How the hell would they "catch" you (push onto crashpad) if their position doesn't give them any chances of doing so? Bent knees, lean forward and be always ready for that fall guys. And if impossible to push, save head first. Most people are really bad spotters because they don't understand why they do it. I used to do the same because I wasn't aware how important this role actually is.
Shows the importance of buddy checks. That's the main positive and negative about auto belays, no climbing buddy.
Yea, this one gonna get a downvote from me dawg. If you're gonna do a whole schtick acting like a news anchor, you should probably fact-check yourself; as has already been pointed out in regards to the mcdonald's coffee incident.
A dude got injured at my gym not long ago, despite orientation, training, being checked off, multiple signs telling you to clip in, if you’re clipped in halfway and at the top of the climb, and a massive orange triangle blocking the starting footholds for the climb. Literally no clue how you manage this.
6 Million because I failed to properly check my equipment...............,Yeah that sounds fair.