Climber Dies at Texas Gym
CBS Dallas Fort Worth is reporting the death of a climber at the Summit Climbing gym in Grapevine, Texas on Sunday evening. Initial reports indicate that the climber, a 52 year old woman, failed to properly attach herself to the auto-belay and fell 25 feet to the ground.
Authorities said the injured woman was airlifted to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas where she was pronounced dead upon arrival. The Dallas County medical examiner has identified the victim as Susan Mailloux, of Irving.
Grapevine police said Mailloux was an experienced climber and was climbing unsupervised on Sunday. Police are continuing an investigation into the fall.
Late Sunday, Kyle Clinkscales, owner of Summit Climbing Gym told NBC DFW: “We are heartbroken for this tragic accident. Our hearts go out to her and her family.”.
Co-op to Open in Breckenridge
The Summit Daily is reporting that Silverthrone, Colorado will soon have their climbing gym back. Formally known as Chizzled Fitness, the gym will now be known as Summit Climbing Gym and will be operated as a co-op.
The gym has had two owners since it first opened in 2002 and has twice gone out of business. “The expenses outweighed the revenue,” said original owner Mike Wolfson, discussing his reasons for giving up the business. He closed the gym in 2005, and is now part of the effort to reopen, with a decidedly different business model. The facility went unused until 2011, when it was reopened by the owners of Chizzled Fitness. Both Wolfson and Chizzled Fitness leased the space, which is now bank owned under foreclosure. “We’re their last shot,” said Kent Sharp, one of the other seven climbers looking to reopen the gym.The co-op model has been used successfully in other small towns that do not have the climber population to sustain a full for-profit climbing gym. Co-ops are run not by a single person trying to make a living off the business but by the customers themselves. Each membership rate is set so the gym will break even with all revenue going back into the facility to buy and maintain equipment. As of Sept. 16th Summit Climbing Gym had reached their goal of 40 annual memberships which will allow them to finalize the lease and other details. The gym hopes to open on Nov. 1st.
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Accident Report Form
There are two types of climbing facilities; those that have had an accident and those that will have an accident. After an accident managers often make changes to reduce the risk of another accident, either by updating their policies, reconfiguring equipment, improving staff training or modifying how they instruct members. These changes are valuable improvements to the climbing industry as a whole, but unfortunately there has not been an effective way to share these best practices. Until now.
Climbing Business Journal has just released the first ever Accident Report Form for indoor climbing facilities. The primary purpose of the Accident Report Form is to learn how an accident occurred and what changes could be made to prevent it from happening again. These lessons can then be shared with the indoor climbing community so that all facilities can learn how to prevent a similar incident.
The information from these forms may be shared on the Climbing Business Journal website and through the Climbing Business Journal’s Annual Report of Accidents. The goal of these reports is to help indoor climbing facilities improve the safety and of their facilities and reduce their risk and liability.
This accident form was inspired by the American Alpine Club’s annual Accidents in North American Mountaineering report. For years the AAC has been gathering and compiling mountaineering injuries and sharing the lessons learned with the mountaineering community. Their goal is “to help you learn from the mistakes of others so you can come home safely and climb tomorrow.” ��We think this is great resource and aim to replicate this tool for the indoor climbing community.
CBJ’s indoor climbing facility Accident Report Form is intended for reporting accidents at an indoor climbing facility that required emergency medical attention: injuries that resulted in an ambulance taking the injured parties to a hospital or the injured parties taking themselves to a medical facility immediately following the accident. The form is not for minor injuries that did not require medical treatment, such as a sprained ankle or skinned knee, or for chronic pain associated with the sport.
We understand that dealing with an accident can be a trying time. That is why we designed the form to be a simple one-page report of just the facts. The names of the people involved in the accident will not be collected, and disclosing the name of the gym is optional. What we care about is helping to find, and share, best practices that will improve the safety and viability of indoor climbing facilities.
Whether you run a large commercial climbing gym, a university wall or recreation center wall this form is for you. When you fill out the form your information will be compiled into a database that will be used to create a one-of-a-kind annual report for the indoor climbing industry. This annual report will give a snap-shot of the safety record of our industry and help all climbing facilities become safer facilities. Largest Downtown Climbing Gym
The project has ballooned by $2.5 million from its original projections, which called for a $4 million building. But doing something that’s never been done before isn’t easy, said Jim Williamson, vice president of planning and development for River City Co. Even finding a place for the 40-foot indoor climbing walls was a challenge. “For this to be a premiere site, they need to be at least 40 feet,” he said. “We only had 20 feet, and there are 600 cars above you so you can’t raise the roof.” So they dug out the concrete floor — an expensive, time-consuming process, but one that was a prerequisite to being taken seriously by the climbing community. The same pit can also be used to train emergency responders by inserting a length of drainpipe to simulate a well or other confined space into which a person might fall and require rescue.Get Out Chattanooga is reporting:
Not everyone is thrilled to see that downtown’s new landmark will be a climbing gym. “I believe that the High Point Climbing Gym will have an immediate effect on the other two climbing gyms that are operating in town,” says Rebecca Robran, co-owner of Urban Rocks Gym off of Amnicola Highway. “Chattanooga may grow to the point where it can sustain three commercial facilities but it is not there right now. The question is whether or not the existing mom and pop facilities can keep their doors open long enough to meet the market growth.” For their part, the Block creators say they don’t want to put anyone out of business and believe the gym will raise awareness of climbing and generate more interest for all of the area’s climbing facilities. O’Brien says Boulder, Colo. has four climbing gyms that are all thriving. “I think this will elevate everyone else,” Wheeler says. Robran is not convinced. “With Boulder as an example, there are four commercial facilities there but all the facilities were built not with the idea of potential growth in the town but because the existing facilities were severely overcrowded throughout the year,” she explains. “Chattanooga’s market has not reached that point for the two existing facilities yet.” Luis Rodriguez, who opened the city’s first climbing gym, Tennessee Bouldering Authority in 1999, says he is not worried. “We’re not going to be in direct competition at all,” he explains. “It’s not going to hurt us; it’s going to help us by raising awareness for climbing.” Rodriguez says TBA is set up more as a “basement, hole in the wall” bouldering gym than a flashy setup with rope and high walls. He hopes the gym will be a landmark and help bring a national or international climbing festival to the area. “It’s going to become like the Aquarium,” he says. “It’s going to be known as part of downtown.”
