I still inspect my partner's harness and know everytime. It's a habit my friends and I have stuck with.

I've always wondered if those load-bearing gear loops on the Metolius harnesses would ever come into play. This dumb gal sure could have used one.

Accidents are a bad thing overall. However, I strongly believe that accidents with the potential for injury that's never realized, are sometimes a good thing. This girl's fall probably scared her enough to either not climb, or make damn sure from now on that she knows how to wear and employ gear properly, in addition to opening her eyes to how dangerous climbing can be without proper instruction.

Also, it's probably safe to assume that at least one person near her that witnessed the accident was either complacent or brand new to climbing (or both) and her accident had an impact on them as well.

I teach climbing for a living(indoors & out), so perhaps I'm used to a higher standard, but this strikes me as utterly preposterous. The first few things any new climber should learn are:

1) How to put on a harness correctly
2) How to tie in
3) How to do a thorough partner check (before every single climb)
a) Identify closed buckles (both "classic" and "speed" designs)
b) Make sure rope is through tie-in points / locking carabiner
is through belay loop)
c) Check that retraced figure-8 is tied correctly (five pairs,
six inch tail) / carabiner is locked with both belay device
and rope through it

Only if somebody can do all of this without difficulty and without missing any points will I even think of teaching them to belay.

I definitely see all kinds of stupid shit at the gym (primarily non-doubled-back buckles, leg loops on wrong, harnesses twisted or upside-down), but both the climber and belayer would have to be absolutely clueless for this to happen.