Jim, glad to see you made it back. My Dad was 60 years old, he was leaving on vacation that afternoon. So, he was running a few estimates in his Cadillac. Our climber was a no show, years before cell phones. Since he was in the car, not his truck, he didn't have his climbing gear. So, he broke one of his own Cardinal Rules, he used the other guys climbing gear. He was just finishing up elevating around the gutter of a two story house. As the rope was going through his taughtline hitch it broke. He fell about 20-25 feet. Landed on his Super EZ and broke his hip and sheared off the bumps on a couple vertebra, broke his left ankle, hip and shoulder. He was actually in good spirits and wanted out of the hospital in a couple days. But, he couldn't pass any food. They said the impact on his internal organs was severe enough that they were all swollen so nothing could go through. That was exactly 30 days before my wedding. He got a 2 hour pass to come to the wedding in a wheel chair. He did recover and continued to climb into his 70's. After he got back on his feet he inspected the other guys climbing rope. We had just started to use braided rope back then. As he slid the rope through his fingers, every now and then, he'd hit a spot where the inner core had been pinched off. The climber had a bad habit of chunking big pieces down, and if the ground crew hadn't moved his rope, he would just drop the chunks on it. Evidently he had dropped chunks and pinched the rope between big roots. Dad may have saved that climbers life though. If he had of showed up we had a big take down to do, he may have been 80-90 feet up when the rope broke. Dad was just filling in to make a day for the ground crew. Moral of story is NEVER use someone else's gear!
