A Technical Study On The Use of Parachutes

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Ghost

climber

A long way from where I started

Dec 16, 2018 - 07:14pm PT

So, edifying and enjoyable though it has been to see the results of serious research into the effectiveness of parachutes in preventing serious injury or death in skydiving, it seems time to get serious for real. This is a climbing website, not a skydiving website, and all but a very few of us here have never, and will never, jump out of an airplane.

Our concern is with becoming detached from rock, rather than from airplanes, and none of us (well, okay, Dean Potter tried it) carries a parachute.

Instead, we have always entrusted our lives to nylon ropes and a variety of metal safety hardware. But, like parachutes for skydivers, this "safety" equipment is both heavy and expensive. And, as has been recently demonstrated, the "safety" aspect may be entirely false -- a commercial sales effort aimed at enriching the companies who make this equipment, but a sales effort with no basis in fact or reality.

With the recent demonstration that even a Californian can safely climb what has long been falsely billed as a difficult and dangerous rockface with no ropes or safety equipment, it seems clear that the team that conducted the parachute-vs-empty-pack study to clearly show that parachute manufacturers are right up there with tobacco companies when it comes to the safety of American citizens should now conduct a similar study on the effectiveness of ropes and metal safety equipment in rock climbing.

Expensive ropes and metal gadgets? F*#k that. If the study shows what i think it will show, I'm just climbing with an empty pack from now on.

Winemaker

Sport climber

Yakima, WA

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 16, 2018 - 09:03pm PT

That's the spirit ghost (so to speak)! It's all becoming clear or, perhaps I should say, 'clearer'. Personally, I've taken the position that Klimmer and his 'Ark' on the moon may be right. They're all bastards or something; it's just not clear. Anyway, all that aside, there is a real question about gravity and it's ultimate affect on our personalities and, to be honest, velocity. Current science seems to suggest v=1/2at² but can we trust that anymore? Inquiring minds want to know!

Ghost

climber

A long way from where I started

Dec 16, 2018 - 09:30pm PT

Current science seems to suggest v=1/2at² but can we trust that anymore? Inquiring minds want to know!

Obviously we need a rigorous and well controlled scientific study into this, but I have done a preliminary investigation, and the result is strikingly similar to the parachute/no-parachute study you linked in your original post.

Surrounded as I now am by 5,000 foot walls in my new home in Powell River BC, I felt this would be the perfect place to begin the research, so I loaded up rope, metal safety equipment, and an empty pack and headed to the local climbing gym -- which, perhaps in a sign of cosmic blessing for this endeavor -- opened just yesterday.

Following the procedure pioneered by the parachute scientists, I plummeted several feet from the plastic holds onto the padded floor, both with and without the expensive safety equipment.

Just as the parachute scientists discovered about skydiving, I found that all evidence points to a massive conspiracy by big business to sell us -- based on a now-exposed but totally false fear campaign -- vast quantities of expensive "safety equipment."

Yes, further research is likely required, but this initial investigation appeared to clearly show that falling onto a climbing-gym floor mat from heights of more than one meter while tied to a rope and carrying vast quantities of expensive (and heavy) metal safety equipment saved no more lives than similar falls with no equipment beyond an empty pack.

I do not have the financial resources to carry on the study (or pay for the lawyers to defend me from the climbing equipment companies), so I hope that others will take the ball from me and rush it toward the goal of exposing the massive exploitation of helpless dirtbags.

Perhaps, with your vast political/financial experience in the campaign to prevent Ms Clinton from running for president, you could lead the charge?

Winemaker

Sport climber

Yakima, WA

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 16, 2018 - 09:34pm PT

Thanks Ghost for your thoughtful and erudite comment. I have only one question: Did you pull the ripcord? Supply data man! I assume that you, as all of us normally do, wear a parachute whilst gym climbing. Perhaps we can expand the scope of the PARACHUTE study!!! I also had another thought re the 'heavy' equipment your were carrying: have you thought about hydrogen? I'll say no more.

Robert Yoho

Social climber

Los Angeles,ca

Dec 17, 2018 - 05:22am PT

This is a serious issue and that parody had a purpose. Randomized controlled trials have been pushed into obscene ends. Now, with data adulteration, they are used to pervert medical care, witness SSRI and atypical antipsychotic usage (neither have studies demonstrating net benefit).

madbolter1

Big Wall climber

Denver, CO

Dec 17, 2018 - 09:08am PT

^^^ Don't forget sociology, economics, and all politically-laden "stats." Mental health care. Hmm... the litany goes on.

Twain: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Doesn't matter how credible the study-conducting entity is; if they have a bias, the study produces biased stats. I have sat on the Ethics in Research committees of two universities, and I've reviewed hundreds of proposed studies across the range of disciplines. Inattentional blindness is a pervasive problem in all studies (and the "stats" that define the "results"). So-called "repeatability" does not eliminate that problem.