Not cave, but zip-line kills a child.

[GypsumWolf]

This is related to rope stuff, but I put it here because of the incidents nature.

Details here: http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_136754.asp

[Stridergdm]

Sad story. It mentions a head injury, makes me wonder if he was wearing a helmet or not.

Once when I was playing around on rope with my son, I let him zip down the "other" side of the rope. Had done this before. Didn't realize until I let him go that this time I had rigged it lower on the tree at the bottom of the zip than I had last time I had done this. He didn't get injured, but did hit the ground a tad harder than I wanted. But the precious second after I let go and before I knew how fast he'd "land" was a LONG one.

[ek]

The minister at the church told the Knoxville News-Sentinel the accident happened when the youth was mistakenly allowed to go down the zip line before a ladder was removed that was being used to get another child off.

Sounds like we know how to avoid this kind of incident--always make sure the end of the zipline is correctly rigged and free of obstruction before getting (or letting anyone) on.

[Ralph E. Powers]

Hopefully this will make people aware that there is much more to zip-lines than stringing a rope between two points and going along on a pulley attached to a harness.

The minister at the church told the Knoxville News-Sentinel the accident happened when the youth was mistakenly allowed to go down the zip line before a ladder was removed that was being used to get another child off. He struck his head on the ladder at a high rate of speed.

Very sad that a child had to die and sad that they had to die trying to have fun. Sadder still that the level of control over the event was lax enough to allow this to happen.