Swing Club climber injured
Swing Club ended a bit unusually on Thursday, August 28th, after one attendee was taken to the hospital. Dance moves gone array were not to blame this time, however.
Clarissa Humphries, a CEU student, was attending Swing Club when she and roommate decided to climb the rock wall without a harness or other equipment.
This archived article was written by: Kellie Henderson
Swing Club ended a bit unusually on Thursday, August 28th, after one attendee was taken to the hospital. Dance moves gone array were not to blame this time, however.
Clarissa Humphries, a CEU student, was attending Swing Club when she and roommate decided to climb the rock wall without a harness or other equipment.
Humphries describes her experience like this, “I climbed half way [up the wall] and came back down. [My roommate] climbed to the top and I’m a very competitive person so I had to climb to the top, too. So I did, and when I got to the top instead of grabbing the last rock for some dumb reason I grabbed the rope that’s up there, it’s not anchored down or anything, so I came falling down with the rope. Andrew Hardman tried to break my fall but ended up flipping me in the process, so I landed on my face first. Then I hit my arms.”
Humphries recalls being very disoriented and dizzy after hitting the ground, “When I lifted up my face, and all the blood’s coming out of my face, the first thing they checked were my teeth, just to make sure they were still in tact, because they felt pretty loose at that point.”
When she finally felt able to get up, nearly a half hour later, Humphries was taken to the hospital, where further mishaps ensued. She explains, “When I was at the hospital they didn’t even check me for a concussion or broken bones or anything, they just stitched my lip … [and] even through that I could feel them stitching on my lip after a while, but they didn’t believe me … I was telling them when I was in there that my arms were hurting, cause I could feel them tensing up.
“The next day when I couldn’t move my arms one of my good friends took me back over to the hospital and we told them they didn’t check me for any broken bones or anything, and I couldn’t move my arms, so I need that checked out right now. We [found out] my left elbow is fractured, and … my right arm is just really badly sprained.”
With both arms in slings and 12 stitches in her lip, Humphries is taking this semester off to recoup at home in Enterprise. “I’m hoping I’ll be up [in Price] as soon as my arms are healed … so I can get back to school. Only time will tell. I’m coming back … I’m going crazy!”
The moral of the story? Remember to use good judgment and proper safety equipment when climbing the rock wall. As cringe-worthy as Humphries’ story may be, imagine what would have happened had she fallen on her back, or straight on her head. In her words, “It’ll definitely make me think twice about climbing up without a harness again but I’ll definitely climb again. It’s all good.”
