Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "" video.

I spent some years when I was younger doing some recreative rappelling, nothing serious like cave diving, just buildings and a few rocks. Our equipment was barebones, but I do recall an incident that was kinda similar to the last story. We didn't use specific descending tools, just figure 8s with a descending knot on it. Allowed for a pretty fast descent, but you had to use gloves just to be safe. So, we had an afternoon descending from the 10th story of a half finished building that was abandoned for almost 10 years by then, it was a base of sorts for us, so we were plenty used to it. When we got to the 2nd floor or so, there was a large patio were people could either stop, climb the stairs back up, and do it again, or you could then go further down to a neighboring parking lot, 5 meter drop with a large wall where you could play a bit, do some spins, run on the wall. As the rope was anchored way up on the 11th floor, there was no risk of it getting caught on ledges and whatnot - we took care to anchor it far from the wall to avoid any damage to the rope. You kinda had to climb a small ledge to further descent to the parking lot. One time, I wasn't paying a lot of attention as I kinda got used to doing it, so when I got up the ledge, I didn't realize the descending knot came undone. It's always when you have slack above the gear that these things can happen. So it's like the rope is still going through the loop, but it doesn't hold enough to stop the fall. I subconsciously held the rope with both hands still using protective gloves, and this slowed my fall from free fall to something a bit slower. It burned the gloves and reached my hands deep. Took a few months to heal. I also had muscle cramps and soreness for a week after it happened, so much force I subconsciously put into it. Fortunately, I was on that 5 meters down descent, so holding the rope that way with all my strength was enough for me to get a hard fall, but not enough to break anything. So yeah... it's no joke. Been well over a decade plus since the time... if I were to ever go back to it, I'd start from zero. These sorts of procedural security steps have to be so ingrained into your practice that it becomes almost subconscious, but they really need to be there every time. If you have to think about it too much, there is a serious danger of missing something and the worse happening.
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