Lynn Griese wrote: My husband just pointed out to me that I was being ambiguous with that statement. I was trying to be nice, since Guideline #1 is "don't be a jerk." I was also hoping that someone else would "out" the belayer, since I don't know his name and only have second-hand accounts of what happened. I know Paul. And I know that he is not OK right now. He will be OK, but right now he is not. I have been telling every climber I know about what happened to Paul and to spread the word about a climber on a 6 month road trip using an Eddy.
Ben Banks wrote:Anyone know anybody that lives in LA and has 5-6 months off from work to help Paul once he is able to leave the hospital? There is one guy I know of but I heard he's continuing the rest of a climbing trip...
Most of us have accidentally physically hurt someone in our lives, but being accidents and not intentional "attacks" we most likely felt like shit afterwards and offered whatever we could of ourselves to try and "right" the situation. In this case Paul will have nothing to do with the belayer and would prefer to never see him again.
I'm not trying to take a side on this but just to point out that your lynching would be more appropriate if this was not an accident. You appear to want the belayer to "pay" for what happened, and that he should quit the road trip to persuade you that he feels appropriately badly for the accident.
I know the belayer, and there really isn't anything else he can do to "right" this situation. Eight years ago he was lowered off the end of a rope by an inattentive belayer and suffered a compound ankle fracture. His ankle is a huge mass of scar tissue now and is a permanent limitation in his active life. His days of being a cycling dork pretty much ended, and the ankle causes pain whenever he uses it (walking, standing, climbing...). This is relevant here only because he has been on the other end of a serious belaying accident and has a very clear understanding of how Paul is feeling.
He feels like shit. He's taking responsibility for his actions and will do whatever he can in penance. If Paul called him up and asked for him to come to his house for assistance, he would do it. I imagine those of us without sin would come up with a variety of punishments for him, but I, for one, don't fit into that group.
It was an bad accident. We should try and learn from these things instead assembling lynching parties.