In one of the most horrifying, nearly tragic, rock climbing falls ever caught on video, a man plunges 100 feet off a craggy rock face and catches just a few inches from the ground.
Jamie McLevy posted the video of his fall, known as a whipper, to Youtube explaining that he was climbing the Souter Sea Stack in Scotland, which was very brittle. Near the top his handheld comes loose and so do the cams attached to the rock for safety. If not for one final bolt, he would have died.
“…the whole route was major brittle and chossy due to a harsh winter,” McLevy tells Rock and Ice. “Numerous holds peeled on me on me way up and the gear placements were major run out.”
Near the top was where he lost his grip.
“Then I slip crash bang wholop down,” McLevy says. “The crack that I stuck the cams in pulled the slab which I put them in right off but the first nuts I put in takes the worst of the speed off my fall.”
McLevy suffered a broken leg and a few fractures, but it certainly could have been a lot worse. And it stands as a good lesson to fellow rock climbers out there to really evaluate the condition of the rock before putting your life on the line.
“Yeah, it was a bit epic,” he said.
