INJURY RATES IN ROCK CLIMBERS

The popular perception of rock climbing is often of a, high risk sport , with serious injury a common outcome of participation. To date, litt le data exists to test this hypothesis. The purpose of this study was to determine injury rates and associated data in: a group of Australia n rock climbers. A retrospective survey was undertaken and data collec ted from 59 active rock climbers. Analysis of the data collected sugge sts that rock climbing has a relatively low injury rate, in terms of i njuries sustained per 1000 h of participation, in comparison with many other popular sports.