A sports climber narrowly escaped receiving life changing injuries when he fell 10 metres from a rock face in a Lake District quarry.
Rowan Alexander Morgan, 24, who is an instructor at Go Ape in the Whinlatter Forest, sustained serious head injuries and fractured two vertebrae in his neck following the terrifying tumble he took while attempting to negotiate the ‘Middle Earth’ route in Bram Crag Quarry at St John’s-in-the-Vale.
He was climbing the route on Thursday June 29 and clipping in bolts on the way up when he lost his grip and fell onto the bolt below.
“As I fell onto the bolt a section of the wall – a 16kg chunk of rock bigger than a rugby ball – in which the bolt was fixed, blew out of the wall and followed me down the rest of the way which was around 10 metres,” said Rowan, who lives at Greysouthen, near Cockermouth. “I ended up on my back in the rocks and boulders underneath the route and the stone was on my stomach.
“I was told that my eyes were open. However, I was not responding for a few seconds.
“I had concussion which has caused me to have significant amnesia about the whole day and what followed. I can’t piece together more than four snapshots of memories from the day.”
He was being belayed by his partner Leah, who is from Canada and a student at the University of Alberta, and she was catapulted into the air because of the weight difference when Rowan fell and sustained bad bruising to her legs.
“I have been very lucky,” said Rowan, who was discharged from the Cumberland Infirmary, Carlisle (CIC) on Friday morning and is now recuperating at home in a neck brace with orders to lead a sedentary lifestyle for the next four to six weeks. “I was fortunate that my spinal cord was not damaged which means I have no neurological symptoms.”
Members of Keswick Mountain Rescue Team were on a training night when they were called out to the incident.
Team members who were out practising mountain biking skills and taking part in some ‘social climbing’ on Shepherd’s Crag went to assist Rowan.
North West Ambulance Service paramedics were also quickly on scene and treated the casualty. Rowan was placed on a stretcher and carried to an awaiting ambulance for onward transfer to CIC.
Earlier in the day the team was called out to help a 68-year-old man who had probably been a little over-ambitious on his first major walk after recovering from a medical condition.
Having walked over Catbells from Hawse End he was descending the Hause Gate path when his legs could do no more. The team arrived and a team doctor did an assessment before he was loaded onto a stretcher for a carry down to the road and a lift back to his vehicle with instructions to take it easy.
