Falling for it
Most of the stories featured here are near misses, but Lyndon Marquis wasn’t so lucky. After recently returning to the site of a bad fall, what has he learned from the experience?
In November 2014, I was solo scrambling Cam Crag Ridge, a Grade 2 route on the Glaramara massif. It’s a route I’d done in company and alone a number of times.
As I’d parked up, I discovered I’d not brought any socks; I had to make a round trip up Borrowdale to Keswick to procure some. I was already on the clock because if I didn’t check in on time, my family would call Mountain Rescue.
This detour stuck an hour onto my start point, so possibly I was rushing when I should have been paying more mind to the rock in front of me.
As I started on the route, both my feet flicked off holds on the overhang near the bottom. I hung on my left arm until I paralysed it – and then I had a very bad day. On top of the nerve damage to my arm, the fall broke 17 bones and I then spent eight hours alone, in the rain and gathering gloom, hoping that Keswick Mountain Rescue Team would arrive before hypothermia.
Earlier that day, I’d swapped a load of gear into my new rucksack. I did not transfer my first aid kit or head torch.
The previous sack had a safety whistle built into the sternum strap; the new one did not.
I survived, but I spent a month in hospital and three years having my right leg reconstructed. I went back and joyously finished the route in August 2021. Having passed the point where I fell, I said to my climbing partner, “I don’t how I ever got past that section without a rope.” He peered back down over the drop, shook his head, and agreed, “No, I don’t know how you ever got past that section without a rope.”
WHAT DID I LEARN?
Do your prep the night before so the morning of your adventure can be used to check your prep. Maybe the whistle would have brought aid sooner, maybe my head torch would have helped KMRT find me quicker? Maybe not. I probably couldn’t have splinted my leg but some painkillers would have been welcome. And I should possibly have looked at the clock after the sock incident, called it off and gone back the following day without the time pressure.
I’m alive because I wore a helmet, because I had water, food and spare insulation, and because the mountain rescuers knew where to start looking as I’d left a route plan. I forgot some kit, but the things I did remember saved my life.