How Not to Do a Fireman's Belay

A fireman's belay is how you lower a hesitant, injured, or even unconscious person. A pull on the rope I held at the bottom of the pitch would slow Dawn, or halt her fall. My mistake was standing directly beneath her.

Dawn inadvertently kicked loose a hail of rocks—one of which slammed into my knee. When I looked down to assess the damage, I saw bone.

We bandaged my knee as best we could and set out to determine how long I could hold out on adrenaline before shock set in. Answer: three rappels. Dawn's husband, Bob, lowered me down the remaining 17.

At the bottom, 12 hours later, I hobbled over uneven terrain to the car, then washed down two Percocet with a slug of bourbon. Now a bumpy scar reminds me where to stand when offering a fireman's belay.

This article appeared in the September/October 2017 edition with the headline "Abysmal Belay."

 

By Leonie Sherman
Illustrations by Koren Shadmi
August 24, 2017

Climbers move rapidly down cliffs by rappelling. The third pitch in Death Valley National Park's Abysmal Canyon involves an overhang and a sickening swing into empty space. My friend Dawn was uneasy, so I offered a fireman's belay as a backup—but I stood in the wrong place.

Ask the Expert
Ron Hudson is chair of the Sierra Club’s Mountaineering Oversight Committee.

“The preferred way to lower a person in trouble is from the top, using a separate rope. A fireman’s belayer needs to stand far enough away from the fall line to be safe from falling rocks. And of course canyoneers should always wear a helmet.”

 

Leonie Sherman is a freelance writer, back-country editor, and self-defense instructor with a Master's Degree in Journalism who spends about 100 nights a year in a sleeping bag.
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