A Serious Accident Has Happened - Now What?

Well, I don't really have a reaction to what caused "the injury" because I have no idea about the details of the incident in question. I suspect this is the awkward result of asking a "hypothetical" question but reacting to everyone's responses through the lens of a specific non-hypothetical situation.

Do you care to share your own thoughts on the subject?

If I were responsible for someone's injury, I view that as my being part of their recovery as much as makes practical sense to both of us. If we can not see eye to eye then that may be where a lawsuit has its place. Edit: I regret bringing up the topic of a lawsuit here - it is not a place I would choose to go.

A concrete working example? Let's say I was lowering you down a pitch so you could try climbing back up a different way. I lost control because I was not familiar enough with lowering with an ATC Guide in guide mode - opened it up too much.

The idea of climbing partners suing each other to be able to pay medical bills is a concept I find amazing, and quite scary.

I much, much, much prefer the NZ ACC approach - everyone gets the treatment they need, and no one sues anyone. It doesn't matter if your climbing partner has a net worth of $50, or $50M, if they were at fault or you were, or who had better legal representation.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accid…

ACC even paid for my front two teeth :)

Blah blah....Communism....Blah...

For a brief moment, we were talking NOT about lawsuits. I regret bringing up the possibility in my last post.

And theres this gem of course

alt Lake Tribune Apr 29, 2001

Dangling from a rope on a rock formation in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Lindsey Enloe knew she was placing her life in her date's hands.

An athletic, outgoing 24-year-old, Enloe was a climbing novice. But Stephen Stinson had supplied all of the equipment, chosen the location for the climb and reassured her he was a 12-year veteran rock climber.

She never imagined the outing would end with her plummeting to the bottom of the rock in a heap.

Enloe, who suffered serious injuries in the April 19, 1997, fall, sued Stinson earlier this month in 3rd District Court. Her negligence claim adds rock climbing to a growing list of outdoor sports prompting lawsuits that ask Utah courts to decide who should bear responsibility when accidents occur.

And although clear precedent exists for accident victims to sue tour groups, resorts or national parks, litigation between people engaging in arguably high-risk outdoor recreation is unusual.

Enloe's Salt Lake City attorneys, Stuart Hinckley and David Burns, have not yet found a similar rock-climbing case in Utah, although they say the case is clear-cut: Stinson told Enloe he was an experienced climber and therefore had a duty to keep her reasonably safe.

Stinson secured nylon climbing webbing, similar to a flat rope, to the top of the rock, but improperly attached that webbing to the nylon rope holding Enloe, the suit alleges. The rope rubbed against the webbing, breaking it and sending Enloe to the ground, the suit said.

The fall left Enloe with a broken pelvis, foot and wrist and a concussion. Her right arm and wrist are permanently impaired and subject to uncontrollable spasms and pain. Enloe also suffered internal injuries and wonders at the age of 29 whether she can bear children.

To add insult to her injuries, Stinson did not tell her he was married at the time of the date, her attorneys said.

Attempts to reach Stinson at his Farmington, Mich., home for comment were unsuccessful.

Enloe met Stinson as he was setting up audio equipment for a charity event she was organizing. Part of his job involved hanging equipment using a harness and ropes, she said.

"When he told me he had been technically climbing for 12ish years, I had no reason to believe otherwise," Enloe said, adding she would not have attempted the climb alone.

But Enloe said she became angry when a friend looked at the equipment Stinson had used and told her it had been set up wrongly, in a mistake the friend said only a rank amateur would make.

At the time, Enloe was living in Salt Lake City but planning a move to Montreal. She has since returned to her hometown of Vernal to be near family and is teaching at a vocational school.

Enloe did not consider suing Stinson until she discussed the accident with another friend, who encouraged her to find out if it could help her pay for mounting medical bills.

University of Utah Law School professor John Flynn, who teaches tort law, said it is rare for one climber to sue another. If successful, the claim could spur others of its kind, pitting more outdoor adventurers against one another when something goes wrong, he said.

Chicago attorney Mitchell Orpett, who heads the American Bar Association's Torts and Insurance Practice Section, said the suit may succeed.

"If this guy is representing himself as an expert, it in essence is really like a suit against an organization supplying expertise," Orpett said. "As a defense lawyer, I would argue that the duty is one of reasonable care, not of perfection and absolute safety."

Utah courts have set high standards for proving negligence in cases related to at least one popular outdoor activity: skiing. Salt Lake attorney Jeffrey Eisenberg han- dled, and lost, a case in which one skier was suing another after an accident. He said the recent filing could face similar obstacles, with courts reluctant to assign blame for sporting mishaps.

The possibility of lawsuits is not a new concern for the all- volunteer Wasatch Mountain Club and similar groups in the West. The WMC requires members or potential members to sign legal waivers before participating in activities.

Legalities aside, Enloe's suit raises the question of how much responsibility a person should take when engaging in outdoor sports - - an issue Curtis Turner, co-director of the club's rock-climbing group, thinks about often.

"No one can ever tell you everything is totally safe," said Turner, 30. "You have to have some common sense and ask some questions. If someone says, 'I know where the trail is,' but he really doesn't and you get lost, should you have gone hiking unless you knew you could make it on your own out there?"

In the meantime, Enloe does not see herself as a victim. Uncomfortable at the thought of being labeled a "money-grubber" for filing the suit, she does not expect the apology she never got. But she does hope the suit could provide her financial restitution and restore her confidence in people.

"I was a very trusting person," Enloe said. "That's changed."

canyoncollective.com/thread…

Just say no to lawsuits. Buy a cute kitten instead.

I wonder if its possible to obtain some sort of catastrophic insurance that would be climbing specific. Hopefully, that limitation would keep the premiums down as it wouldn’t cover a car accident on the way to the crag, or anything else aside from climbing / climbing exposure / both objective and subjective risk type injuries. I would pay for it to be sure I had something that would cover me between jobs and life changes – when I do a lot of climbing. Ideally it would be something I could have afforded when I was young and could continue to afford once I leave my job with its excellent benefits. Does anyone have any information on that sort of coverage?
As a climber, I know I might die or end up permanently paralyzed/injured when I climb. We each have an obligation to be totally honest with other people about our experience or any problems we might be having on a particular day (like I can’t focus because I am stressed about something, I am sick, or whatever.) I also know I have an obligation to accept the risks of climbing with other people. Even experienced, unstressed people make mistakes that might kill or hurt me. Insurance against catastrophic injury and being conservative with partners should be priorities.
That being said I have had some personal experiences that have really made me angry. Once I pulled over a crux roof on the second pitch of a route with a newly met partner. Because it was windy and I wanted to be sure that partner would understand what to do once I hit the anchor if he couldn’t hear me, I down climbed to where I could see him to explain it. He was sitting on the ledge with both hands off the rope (an ATC belay) and smoking a cigarette. I was down-climbing the crux moves, still above my gear. Maybe they assumed that since they couldn’t see me I was already safe at the anchor, but I was dropping slack as I down climbed, which was piled up in front of him. I didn't get hurt, but I accept responsibility for making some bad assumptions about him.

Maybe he needed to replenish his rack with yours? ;-)

This isn't a suggestion, but an antipodean view of how we do it down here (New Zealand). If you are in New Zealand and get hurt (regardless of how), you are 100% covered medically - from rescue to physio. No questions, irrespective of whether you're a citizen or tourist. If you're working here, income is compensated for.
As a result, lawsuits are almost unheard of down here. Obviously it's paid for by our high taxes, but maybe high taxes aren't always such a bad thing.

Getting a little off topic here ... really just a resource discussion ...and quite wordy ...

The New Zealand system does sound humane (and expensive). I wonder some about rates of injuries in extreme adventures.

Up here, last summer we spent 8 days in a popular part of Grand Teton National Park - in and around the main canyon system leading up to the Grand Teton. I recall rescue helicopters going in and out every day but one. We spoke with an incident commander (park ranger) the day we left, our having the night before come to the aid of a man in the back country with a broken ankle - three rangers hiked in to us in the wee hours of the morning and the man was taken out by helicopter at first light.

That national park does not charge for rescues. The rescues below $500 come out of the rangers' budget. Reportedly, one way they can make up for such losses is to hire less people the next year. :-/ Federal funding is available for rescues over $500. I have no idea whether this information is generally known.

He also spoke of other popular locations where instead victims are charged for rescues. He felt that in some of those circumstances, there tended to be the below kind of cycle:

People tend to buy rescue insurance. And for those, rescues by the rescue organizations are paid for by insurance companies. So rescue organizations are more prone to encourage people to call for full-on evacuation even in cases where the person(s) in trouble could likely self-rescue or at least be helped out without the aid of a helicopter.

The cycle mentioned above is not meant to imply that rescue organizations are greedy for money - just perhaps a resulting systematic tendency to spend a lot of resources. Maybe someone with first-hand experience will chime in.

And that's not to knock what you mention for New Zealand. It's just to acknowledge the different dynamics depending on the surrounding system.

If we know we won't have to take on much of the cost of evacuation and/or health costs and/or lost income due to disability, are we more willing to take chances? Some posts in this thread imply so: don't participate in the sport if you can't afford the possible consequences.