Suspension Bondage Woes

[Lotharjulz]

After a few painful months of being in a cervical collar (and possibly another surgery soon), Im able to write about my recent unfortunate experience. The doctors think I will be back to almost normal eventually with some possible nerve pain for a long while.

Since summer time I have been experiencing the joys (and challenges) of being with an additional partner who is new to BDSM. Needless to say it has been a whirlwind of activity, hedonism, and that activity expanded into some more forms of my favorite suspension bondage.

I have written elsewhere about the details of our suspension bondage setup in our garage, however, to summarize it is setup with four pulleys in each corner of the garage with steel cables that are centrally attached to an electric winch in the center of the ceiling.

We got the creative idea of trying a 69 with our new sub and I, while both suspended. Because I was on the bottom and we only have one set of leather suspension cuffs, I was made to wear those, while Kim was on top wearing normal silicon wrist and ankle restraints. Crucially, she is a bit shorter than I am, so additional chains where needed to "extend" the corner cables to her restraints, whereas mine where attached directly. It took quite a bit of time and adjustments by our owner to make sure we were both aligned within reach of each other and our bondage was still sufficiently tight on our limbs.

After a few test pulls, we were finally lifted off of the prep table into the air by the winch and the table was removed. Needless to say our hormones kicked in, we both started to get into a pleasurable rhythm of swaying and tonging as I felt waves of incredibly awesome tension on my wrist and ankles and sensual lips on me.

Horrifyingly something went wrong in a flash and I came around to excruciating pain all over my naked upper body and EMTs asking me questions about my condition before being loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital.

I am told that the rivets in the d-rings of the wrist cuffs pulled through the leather out one-by-one in quick succession which led to my upper body falling to the ground smashing the back of my head to the concrete floor. Reflecting on this it was supporting not only my weight but the weight of Katie as well due to the configuration that was chosen to restrain her on top. The waves of tension certainly didnt help and relying on leather cuffs for the only means of support was incredibly reckless.

While I dont mind dying for my fetish, being handicapped as a result is certainly not a desirable outcome for anyone involved and wanted to give a warning to those who play with gravity to make sure you are within the limits of what the designers have envisioned for the restraints.

[JIMDINI]

Ouch! sounds terrifying. hope you are fully recovered soon. It certainly reinforces all the warnings about suspension bondage.

But, just out of curiosity, did the EMTs find you both still restrained or had every thing been removed before they arrived

[Gregovic]

Ooof, I wish you a speedy recovery and fingers crossed for no permanent damage.

[ruru67]

Ouch!

I can't speak for your gear of course, but I have to say a lot of commercially available suspension cuffs I've seen scare the willies out of me. I got so peeved by commercial offerings that I made my own out of some very thick leather, with considerable thought put into how they should be constructed. Even then I'm itchy about how they're loaded.

[bound_jenny]

Oh, dear!

I must thank you wholeheartedly for sharing your unfortunate accident here so others may be spared a similar - if not worse - fate.

Suspension bondage is an unforgiving activity and the least miscalculation can lead to injury or worse.

Be well, be safe, and I wish you a full recovery.

Jenny.

[Lotharjulz]

:shock: Ouch! sounds terrifying. hope you are fully recovered soon. It certainly reinforces all the warnings about suspension bondage.

But, just out of curiosity, did the EMTs find you both still restrained or had every thing been removed before they arrived

I was told everything not directly attached to me was removed and cleaned up. They were terrified to move me so I was "as-is" (nude) with a cuff still on one of my wrists as I fell on top of it. There was quite a bit of my blood on the ground from a cut in the back of my head that remained for quite a few weeks unfortunately.

The story was amended a little bit removing Kim from the scene, but the intent and sexual activity was intact as they wanted to give as clear an account as they could to help completely. I repeated the simple story to the doctors and nurses that "I fell backwards onto the garage floor". Not because I was humiliated, just because I didn't want to have to explain the crazy details over and over again. Everyone was so courteous and nice though so outside of the pain it was a relatively good hospital experience.

Thank you all for the best wishes!! I'm in so much better shape today than I was a month ago. Had to miss Thanksgiving though so I'm looking forward to seeing family for Christmas.

[Shannon SteelSlave]

They certainly do make it look fun and easy at the professional studios, don't they?
I remember my event that almost cancelled self bondage forever for me. Hanging upside down, thankfully only 6 inches off the ground, the cable I used to hold me was a bicycle lock. The crimp that held the loop at the end loosened up and allowed the cable to slip through. What I will never forget is the way my view went 45 degrees to one side when I fell. I was so lucky not to be paralyzed, and feel no physical effects of it to this day. But I ain't never doing that again. Sounds like fun, feels like it would be fun, would love to do it, but no, never again.
Yes, I agree. If it had to go badly, a handicapped state is the absolute worst outcome I can think of. And having to explain to the people I would be forced to depend upon.

[Lotharjulz]

Ouch!

I can't speak for your gear of course, but I have to say a lot of commercially available suspension cuffs I've seen scare the willies out of me. I got so peeved by commercial offerings that I made my own out of some very thick leather, with considerable thought put into how they should be constructed. Even then I'm itchy about how they're loaded.

I'm not sure I will be trying suspension play ever again as a result of this. Maybe if someone made some sort of steel reenforced cuffs I might consider it again.

[Lotharjulz]

They certainly do make it look fun and easy at the professional studios, don't they?
I remember my event that almost cancelled self bondage forever for me. Hanging upside down, thankfully only 6 inches off the ground, the cable I used to hold me was a bicycle lock. The crimp that held the loop at the end loosened up and allowed the cable to slip through. What I will never forget is the way my view went 45 degrees to one side when I fell. I was so lucky not to be paralyzed, and feel no physical effects of it to this day. But I ain't never doing that again. Sounds like fun, feels like it would be fun, would love to do it, but no, never again.
Yes, I agree. If it had to go badly, a handicapped state is the absolute worst outcome I can think of. And having to explain to the people I would be forced to depend upon.

Oh my. That vision thing would definitely scare me as well!! I was in a haze for a while after the incident but fortunately nothing brain related other than a concussion.

Yes, I have been a little bit of a burden on my owner the first month for sure and don't think she is an that excited to try suspension either anytime soon.

[ponylady]

Yeepers, lothar

Glad to hear you‘ll recover from that ordeal. That must have been scary & is something that
I would figure to pop up in dreams.

A speedy recovery for you & happy holidays for you & your SO.

I made your thread a sticky, since the inherent dangers in suspension play are often overlooked

[bounddosster]

That definitely gets an OMG!, what a horrible thing to happen. Personally I don't with suspension, to dangerous for my liking. If you ever get back into it I recommend you use some form of crash mat as a just in case back up. I hope your all well soon.

[ruru67]

I'm not sure I will be trying suspension play ever again as a result of this. Maybe if someone made some sort of steel reenforced cuffs I might consider it again.

I don't know about steel, but for suspensions, I believe when it comes to sizing the material is and how many fasteners to put in it, the word "overkill" should spring to mind...

That said I laugh all the time at riggers who go on about rated carabiners and lifting hardware, and then use it with bits of twisted vegetable matter. Seriously, jute fibres are about 150mm long or shorter by the time they're twisted into rope, and they're basically held together by a combination of friction and force of habit. It's impossible to rate natural fibre rope, and then when you use a carabiner or 10mm ring as a pulley, it stresses the rope in ways that break fibres and move them in the rope, so that thing you got away with 10 times may cause the rope to just snap on the 11th. Seen it happen (fortunately close to the floor). You have to think about the whole system - not just the static parts, but the dynamic loads, the wear characteristics and so-on. There's stuff going with this sort of play that folk really ought to be more scared about...

[Lotharjulz]

I'm not sure I will be trying suspension play ever again as a result of this. Maybe if someone made some sort of steel reenforced cuffs I might consider it again.

I don't know about steel, but for suspensions, I believe when it comes to sizing the material is and how many fasteners to put in it, the word "overkill" should spring to mind...

That said I laugh all the time at riggers who go on about rated carabiners and lifting hardware, and then use it with bits of twisted vegetable matter. Seriously, jute fibres are about 150mm long or shorter by the time they're twisted into rope, and they're basically held together by a combination of friction and force of habit. It's impossible to rate natural fibre rope, and then when you use a carabiner or 10mm ring as a pulley, it stresses the rope in ways that break fibres and move them in the rope, so that thing you got away with 10 times may cause the rope to just snap on the 11th. Seen it happen (fortunately close to the floor). You have to think about the whole system - not just the static parts, but the dynamic loads, the wear characteristics and so-on. There's stuff going with this sort of play that folk really ought to be more scared about...

You are spot on about the rope rigging. We initially were going to do rope attached to the winch but decided that it would be too unreliable and worth dealing with the inflexibility of the steel cable. Even then there are two chokes on each end with finger nail polish on cables to inspect periodically for any slippage. We would have gone with better suspension cuffs if we could have found something more than the leather variety.

We have a bunch of pairs similar to these, which give a lot of confidence about the security and reliability to my owner and are always chosen when I am secured on my own. I wish they made something similar in a suspension configuration as well as they are terrible at the tension points for comfort. We are done with suspension until we can figure out something that is either ridiculously strong or sufficiently redundant. It was quite possible some of the rivets were pulling out over the minute or so of activity we had but had no idea to check that in progress. It needs to be an obvious redundant mechanism.

Actually now that I think of it, we should have used these in addition to the suspension cuffs as a backup. At least the comfort would be a good indicator of a failure. Im still a little PTSD about the whole thing though so who knows. I currently dont find suspension play exciting right now.