So this morning the Statesman posted a story about, well just check it out:
A 22-year-old man remains in critical condition this morning after he fell more than 15 feet during an outing at Reimers Ranch Park in southwestern Travis County.
The man’s name has not been released.
Earlier in the day the report said he was a climber. “Climber,” and everyone went up on the emails trying to find out more. Turns out Paul was around just before it happened, and made this observation:
I just talked to the park rangers and Jashunda Sanders, the Statesman reporter that wrote the piece. She said the paramedics press release called the kid that got hurt a climber. It turns out it was one of the kids in the group I passed on my way out. They DEFINITELY were not climbers.
However, the reporter mentioned something interesting to me and something I think will potentially cause some issues down the line. She said the kid was scrambling/climbing down a cliff when he fell – therefore he was a climber when he fell. Although he isnt a climber in our eyes…he was climbing at the time in the eyes of media, park rangers and ems.
This at some point may cause access issues for us. One bad side effect of the park going public. Now that the city is promoting the park, there are more folks heading out there with less experience, climbers or not. Regardless, there are going to be more injuries and they will likely be referred to as climbers. Especially since you have to essentially climb in and out of the canyon.
So there’s all this concern now that if a person gets hurt falling off of something at R’s, they’re going to be called a “climber” and everyone is going to think that the person was, go figure, a climber. The ish is this: Climbers at Reimers are climbing routes with bolts and harnesses and ropes and stuff. Sometimes they take tragic falls and get hurt or even die. We all sign a waiver saying that if that happens it’s nobody’s fault but our own. Hikers don’t sign away their lives like that, and something like this could leave the park liable. Liability for people getting hurt is one of two huge reasons that climbers lose access. The other way? Cave paintings
This person, according to PB’s account of the accident, and the whole 15-feet thing (which leads me to believe he was not on a route), and the fact that the press release that the Statesman story was based on didn’t mention anything about climbing gear, was most likely what we call a “hiker.” A hiker is a person who visits R’s and hikes to the river. Hikers don’t expect the first part of the hike to be so treacherous as it is. No, we don’t think of the little staircase of soggy limestone and hop into the cave or the canyon as “treacherous,” but it is. Apparently.
This is the first bad accident I’ve heard of happening to a non-climber at R’s. Of course, the non-climbers just started coming out a couple of years ago.
And now there’s all this concern that climber access will be threatened as a result of the accident. SendAustin is kinda thinking that, for one, clarification will help ease the stigma. For two, the head ranger is a smart guy, and will understand that climber means climber not hiker. Three, if hiker access is abbreviated, well, we’re totally ok with that.
Our call to the drama queens, whores, etc, is to not freak about about access until the county says something about possibly closing the park or pulling access. But people die while climbing and hiking in public parks every year, and the parks stay open. We may live in what’s sometimes termed a “soft society” of sissy’s who blame everyone else for their problems, but through it all the government usually keeps parks open.
So maybe less freak out on the matter around our precious climber access, and more concern for the kid who fell and is really badly hurt?
Har Har, now you feel kinda guilty, eh?
More on this as it develops. Actually, more on this a few hours after it develops when we have time to process the meaning of it all…
image via the girl scouts
