At about 1:30pm on Saturday 23rd February a female canyoner aged in
her mid 40s suffered a spiral fracture of the fibula (lower leg) on a
short down-climb just before the final abseil in Galah Canyon on the
Newnes Plateau. The woman had over 10 years canyoning experience and
was in a party of six, the weather was clear at the time. The woman
landed badly on the ground and then fell backwards after briefly
losing control at the bottom of her descent. The method she was using
was to face forwards (with her bottom against the rock) and slide down
by gripping the thin fixed line over her shoulder. The down-climb had
a fixed hand line estimated at 5mm diameter by her companions.

The group bandaged the injury and took the woman through the rest of
the canyon to the exit point. Two members of the group left from here
to exit the canyon to contact police. Emergency services arrived at
the cars at about 6:00pm and two helicopters arrived in the area from
about 6:30pm but were unable to locate or evacuate the injured person.

Police and SCAT officers walked to the site with one of the original
group members arriving at the exit at about 3:00am with extra
provisions. The group with the injured person had a fire going and
were keeping the patient warm.

On Sunday morning a helicopter returned and in three trips removed the
injured person, the rest of the group and rescuers and the patient was
transferred to hospital.

Comments from the group

Down climbs are usually far more dangerous than abseiling. You don't
have the same control and spending 10 minutes rigging an abseil on a
dodgy down-climb can save a lot of heartache.

LEVEL 3 REPORT