PoleVaultPower.com

This was a very serious crash ... but it could have been a LOT worse!

It's a bad camera angle, but judging by the way his legs disappear behind the mat, and the re-appear, it looks as tho most of his body weight might have been caught by the front slope of the pit ... so he sorta bounced off the pit and into the box ... luckily.

And lucky also that his left shoulder took the brunt of the upper part of his body that didn't touch the pit. Better his shoulder than his head!

There are so many things wrong with this accident ... it looked like he was gripping too high ... on the wrong pole (too stiff for his runway and takeoff speed) ... probably "under" ... poor trail-leg swing ... he was unable to roll the pole to vertical ... he let go of the pole instead of hanging on ...

Was a good box collar around the box? A Skydex box or a SafetyMax collar MIGHT have saved him from injuring his shoulder (as much).

We need to learn from each and every accident like this!

Kirk

What is disturbing is that he apparently didn't have the awareness of mind to keep a hold of the pole. It's hard to tell when exactly he might have realized it he was way short; it may have been after he let go.

If you turn up the volume very high you can hear the vaulter talking.
He said he hit the box with his back.....I think he said he hit his back ribs..ah
Scary.

Divalent wrote:What is disturbing is that he apparently didn't have the awareness of mind to keep a hold of the pole. It's hard to tell when exactly he might have realized it he was way short; it may have been after he let go.

Agreed. He actually has a "decent" swing AND EXTENSION, so this is not your typical stall out. To understand WHY he continued to swing and EXTEND well short of vertical ... and then subsequently let go of the pole ... you'd have to ask him.

This vid was posted by Chris Hauswirth. Chris, if you're on PVP, can you shed any light on this acciden?

Does anyone else know the vaulter? What's his PR? What height was he attempting? What flex pole? What grip? What was his grip prior to this vault? His singlet says "FRESNO" ... is this who he vaults for? What's his normal runway speed? Was he much slower on this attempt?

According to the flags to the right of the runway, there was a fairly strong right-to-left breeze ... which can sometimes screw up the pole drop of a right-hander ... but this didn't seem to affect his run or plant much ... or did it?

In our quest to try to reduce or eliminate PV accidents, it would be nice to know more about this accident.

I guess the biggest question that Divalent and I have is why the heck he CONTINUED his swing AND extension, even tho he fell way short? What was he thinking? (Please don't take this as a criticism ... I really want to know what he was thinking. I let go of the pole 3 times ... landing in the box ... so my intent is not to criticise, but rather to add to our "lessons learned".)

My best guess at the moment is that he suddenly gripped way too high, or suddenly went to too stiff of a pole ... and didn't adjust anything else.

Kirk

What disturbed me is that it didn't seem like anyone called 911 or sought medical aid at the meet immediately. I am so glad the athlete was able to walk away, but he could have suffered a head injury and should have been evaluated by trained personnel immediately.

I think maybe it was this athlete: http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/A ... AID=813800

It looks like it ended his season. The primary reason I posted this is to find out if he was really OK or if he suffered more serious injuries than it originally appeared.


FWIW, I heard that this video looks similar to the Kevin Dare incident. Fortunately the result was not as tragic (I would not have posted it if it was!)

I have an update, he ended up deeply bruising a shoulder, slightly puncturing a lung, and spending a night in the hospital. Did not recover before the end of the season, but he wants to continue vaulting.