Safety in climbing gyms: the studies and the codes.

The five-year German gym study

One study of injuries at a climbing wall is by Schoeffl, Hoffmann and Kuepper, published in Wilderness and Environmental Medicine in 2013. It followed one German climbing wall over five years, covering 515,337 visits; a Reuters Health report of the study (republished by Climbing Business Journal, 30 September 2013) gives the years as 2007 to 2011. The BMC's report of the study (30 September 2013) gives these findings:

• 30 injury events, a rate of 0.02 injuries per 1,000 hours of climbing, and no deaths.
• 6 injuries in bouldering, 16 in lead climbing, 7 in top-roping and one to a bystander.
• Bouldering injuries were mostly falls onto the mat; injuries in roped climbing mostly came from belaying mistakes.
• On the UIAA severity scale, 15 injuries were grade 2, 13 grade 3 and 2 grade 4. The authors judged many of them preventable.

Two caveats come with these numbers. An event counted only if paramedics or a doctor were called, so minor injuries people dealt with themselves were left out. And the count may differ between sources: the BMC and the Reuters Health report both give 30, while search summaries give 32, of which 30 involved climbers and 2 spectators, without a source that could be identified. Which framing the paper itself uses could not be confirmed, because its full text was not read.

The 0.02 figure is far below the mean of 2.71 injuries per 1,000 hours that a 2018 review of eight sport climbing and bouldering studies reports (Jones, Schoeffl and Johnson, Current Sports Medicine Reports, as its repository abstract gives it). Search summaries put the gap down to different injury definitions and study designs. The two numbers measure different things and are not comparable.

Gym accident statistics: DAV and KLEVER

The German Alpine Club (DAV) and the climbing gym association KLEVER publish gym accident statistics. Their 2024 figures, as LaCrux reported them on 7 July 2025, counted 261 accidents with serious injury or an emergency-service call: 220 in German gyms and 41 in Austrian gyms, which were included for the first time.

The bodies count only cases with an emergency-service call or a known hospital stay, and not every gym reports equally, so they say further accidents go unrecorded. A search summary of the 2025 statistics gives 252 cases, 200 in Germany and 52 in Austria; the DAV's site returned errors, so that figure is unconfirmed.

US emergency department data

Madsen, Pezzullo, Nixon, Vincent and Vincent (2025), using US emergency department data from 2013 to 2022, found that half of the injuries to climbers under 18 happened on climbing walls, against 8.5 to 14.7 percent in other age groups. Women and under-18s were more often hurt in short falls indoors, of 3.04 metres or less. The injuries page has the rest of their findings. Any suspected injury needs medical care.

What the wall associations publish

United Kingdom: the ABC Code of Practice

The Association of British Climbing Walls (ABC) Code of Practice, approved by the BMC, sets a minimum standard for all climbing walls whatever their size; the page shows no date or version. Among its points:

• Walls should be built to EN 12572, parts 1 to 3, with an operator's manual from the maker, and walls and protective equipment inspected as the maker directs and in line with UK work-at-height and lifting-equipment rules.
• Bouldering areas need suitable impact flooring.
• Users must understand the risks before climbing, and operators must risk-assess all activities.
• Only competent users may climb roped routes unsupervised; novices need supervision by a competent person; novice boulderers should have a safety induction or be supervised; and instruction must come from an appropriately qualified instructor.

The Code's participation statement says that roped climbing, bouldering and auto-belay use all carry a risk of serious injury or death, that good practice does not remove all risk, and that participants are responsible for following the conditions of use. In May 2025 the ABC launched an accreditation scheme for walls in England and Wales, supported by the BMC and funded by Sport England, assessing inspection and maintenance, staff training, safeguarding, risk management, emergency response and management of structures and equipment. A search summary of a May 2026 ABC post says the scheme was extended to Scotland; that is unconfirmed.

United States: CWA Industry Practices

The Climbing Wall Association's Industry Practices (the CWA's page names a Third Edition but gives no year) is meant to raise awareness of standard practice and help operators write their own policies and risk-management procedures. The CWA says it is not an operations manual and is flexible rather than a set of rigid standards. Its chapters include client orientation, training and assessment, which lists top-rope and lead belay tests and auto-belay orientation, and climbing and facility operations, which covers supervision plans, climbing policies, minors and route-setting. The text itself is not public, and no public CWA statement on gym belay checks was found.

A maker's statement

A Petzl safety notice on its gym harnesses, dated 14 May 2024 in its web address, says gyms should train staff and customers because some customers have little or no experience of these dangerous activities. This is a maker's claim seen only in a search summary, as the page itself would not load.

For how gyms are built and how many there are, see climbing gyms. For self-belay devices, see auto-belays. This site does not recommend individual gyms.