Former staff and customers of a climbing gym, fined $350,000 over accidents that left a woman and a child permanently injured, say the incidents happened against a backdrop of broader safety and workplace-culture concerns.
Extreme Edge in Panmure, Auckland, is New Zealand’s largest indoor rock climbing facility. The company that owns it has been fined $350,000 and ordered to pay more than $100,000 in reparations. The WorkSafe prosecution was over two 2022 accidents, just 18 days apart.
The Auckland District Court heard that on June 24 that year, 26-year-old Grace Thompson suffered shattered vertebrae, burst both heel bones into fragments and underwent eight surgeries after she jumped from the top of the gym’s speed-climbing wall believing she was attached to an auto-belay machine that would lower her slowly to the ground with a rope once she reached the top.
Gates installed at the wall would have reminded climbers to clip into the auto-belay device, but Extreme Edge did not have any, despite the company having considered bringing in additional safety measures for the speed wall.
The speed wall was reopened three days later with no additional safety measures in place.
Eighteen days later, a nine-year-old boy sustained multiple fractures when he fell from the same wall for the same reason. He spent several months in a wheelchair, had four surgeries and suffered permanent scarring.
The company pleaded guilty to two charges of exposing people to risk of harm or illness. It was convicted on both counts and fined $175,000 for each charge, in May. It was also ordered to pay $50,000 to Thompson for emotional harm plus $4,315 in consequential loss, and $15,000 to the nine-year-old boy and his family, who had already received $35,000.
“The defendant has accepted that it failed to take the reasonably practicable action of installing effective belay gates on the speed wall and that following the first incident, the defendant further failed to close the speed wall until appropriate controls were implemented including the installation of belay gates,” Judge Belinda Sellars said.
Some ex-employees and regular customers say they have experienced, and reported, various issues about the gym under its current management. They say the accidents were part of wider failure to adequately address some safety concerns, and a workplace culture that made it at times difficult to speak up.
Extreme Edge director and majority shareholder Nico Buik denies all of the allegations.
One staffer, who worked at Extreme Edge between 2016 and 2021, said he raised concerns with current management about what he judged to be the “severely impacted” condition of 16 of the ropes. Increased moisture in the air from heavy rain would cause the ropes to swell, making them difficult to feed through the belay devices.
Feeling the rope to be jammed, inexperienced belayers (the person on the ground managing the rope connected to the person on the wall to keep them protected) would then hold the safety device open to feed those ropes through. If they hit a less swollen portion, it could run through at speed, causing the climber to drop suddenly and burning the belayer’s hands as they tried to arrest it.
He said he also escalated fears about staff safety. Those included employees cleaning gutters on the roofs without proper equipment, and using scissor lifts (a mobile elevated platform that lifts workers) to set climbing routes with minimal training, if any. The former employee said the concerns did not result in changes.
Another former employee, who left in 2020, said her fears about poor maintenance were also ultimately dismissed.
She took her concerns to management when three inexperienced staff were ‘t-nutting’ the back wall (installing metal inserts into a climbing wall so holds can be bolted on) using a harness and an ascender.
“This was not standard practice, especially for staff with little-to-no experience.”
When she escalated her concerns, she said she was asked “Why are you upset? Nothing happened.”
A notification filed to WorkSafe in 2022 expressed concerns about safety at the gym and a workplace culture that prevented staff and climbers from speaking up.
The complaint sought a “full and thorough investigation of the entire Extreme Edge Ltd operation from a safety perspective” and appropriate sanctions for any safety issues identified.
The complainant wanted to see significant changes to the way the company operated the gym, and the “installation of a manager who is committed, able and empowered to implement changes and put the safety of Extreme Edge Ltd’s customers at the centre of the operation”.
The notification came soon after the two accidents on the speed wall. The complainant believed these should never have occurred, and would never have occurred had Extreme Edge taken an appropriate level of ownership of safety and applied an appropriate priority and level of resources, both human and financial, to safety.
Speaking to Newsroom, the complainant said, “I do think some things have improved since the [WorkSafe] investigations, but many of the staff there are still very young and inexperienced”.’
Buik told Newsroom most staff were “superb at their job and Extreme Edge is in business today thanks to the stellar efforts of those people keeping our customers safe”.
However, he added: “As with any business, sadly, a very small number of staff – despite our best efforts and additional training – do not perform to our comprehensive safety requirements. This can put our customers at risk and these individuals eventually move on from working for us.”
Of the swollen ropes, he said daily rope checks helped decide which ropes should be taken out of use.
Data obtained under the Official Information Act shows between 2010 and 2025, WorkSafe received 37 notifications about Extreme Edge. WorkSafe’s response doesn’t say which of these were lodged by the company’s directors, and which were complaints lodged by worried staff, customers or others.
Of these cases, two led to prosecutions (the falls suffered by Grace Thompson and the eight-year-old boy), two prompted workplace assessments that resulted in no further action, and one resulted in an improvement notice.
Twenty-five of the notices reported falls, 21 of which resulted in injuries ranging from sprains to spinal damage. Four claimed gear failure. This included, “unsupervised child clipped into the automatic belay system and climbed up the wall. The cable and carabiner detached from the harness and the child fell” (2018); “carabiner became unclipped from harness” 5m up the wall, with the climber falling and landing on their back (2018).
Many of the notifications related to climbers who had failed to use gear properly, and claimed insufficient supervision.
One from 2025 detailed the “bullying and humiliation” of staff members.
Asked about the number and nature of the incidents, Buik said Extreme Edge had a low number of complaints to Worksafe because “we take safety very seriously and our staff are committed to enforcing this”.
He pointed to the centre’s positive reviews on Google, where it is rated 4.6 out of five from 1786 reviews.
“Extreme Edge Panmure is one of Auckland’s largest and friendliest rock climbing experiences,” Matthew Hines wrote on Google reviews in July. “Neither of us are experienced climbers but the staff were friendly, explained everything clearly, and got us climbing pretty quickly. Everything felt well looked after and the atmosphere was relaxed.”
Many spoke of the gym’s good facilities for children and said they felt safe.
“My five-year old son enjoyed his time at Extreme Edge. A bonus is having the kids area where kids can play. The staff are attentive, safety cautious and friendly. We will be back. Highly recommend, five stars,” Loretta Lingman wrote.
Chavez Andrada added: “Amazing place for kids! I had my two older ones (nine & six) climbing. Once they got the hang of it, they didn’t want to leave. We were there for four hours and they didn’t want to leave. Great idea for birthdays and holiday fun!”
William Lin shared his thoughts on the “extremely professional staff who help put the gear on the kids and gave a thorough safety briefing”.
Private climbing gyms in New Zealand are not subject to mandatory government safety audits. However, they have a legal responsibility under the Health and Safety at Work Act to ensure, “so far as reasonably practicable”, the health and safety of their staff, climbers, and visitors.
Asked how two prosecutions out of 37 notifications over 15 years compared with the overall average, head of inspectorate Rob Pope said WorkSafe initiated 35 prosecutions each year out of a typical 10,000 incident notifications.
Dr Christopher Peace, a health and safety expert from Victoria University with decades of experience as a workplace inspector and consultant, said the number and nature of the incidents were “extraordinary”.
He was not able to say how the number of incident reports compared with other climbing facilities, but found the “failure to learn from mistakes” surprising – especially the number of falls causing injury that followed a notice of improvement issued over a 2013 fall that fractured a customer’s heels.
“A reasonable response from any business would be, ‘We’re on the radar for WorkSafe, we need to improve our game’. If you’ve had that many injuries over 15 years, there is no excuse that they wouldn’t know that this would be reasonable or practicable.
“It’s extraordinary, and I want to know why.”
Former employee Hannah Paradis resigned from her job at Extreme Edge in March last year. In her resignation letter she attributed her departure to “ongoing bullying and harassment” by the manager, Jacob Dodds.
She filed complaints to both Employment NZ and WorkSafe, which were taken no further.
After feeling “really let down”, in August 2025 Paradis posted her concerns anonymously in a Facebook group for Auckland rock climbers.
“I need to say, I’m from another country and worked at Extreme Edge. This was the worst workplace I have ever had in my life, and I have worked at a lot more gyms in the EU.
“The manager is constantly watching the cameras and counting the minutes you spend talking to gym locals.
“I saw a teenager make a mistake, and the manager criticised him for it for 10 minutes over everyone’s radios. It was horrible public shaming on a really busy day.”
Paradis said she was accused of lying because, instead of the five minutes she’d said she spent talking to a customer, it had been recorded as seven.
“I love climbing, but this experience made me shake when I went home after talking to him. I was bullied at this workplace because I was new and vulnerable, despite having more experience than most people there … Please be nice and patient with the staff if you go.
“It was really hard for me to write this …”
Shortly after, a Facebook moderator in the climbing community and a former climber at the gym began to receive repeated requests to remove the post – requests from management directly, and from Netsafe under the Harmful Digital Communications Act. The admin saw management’s attempt to involve Netsafe as a tactic to suppress safety discourse and said they refused to be intimidated, keeping the post live.
“The number of times [management] tried to contact me was scary.”
The admin ended up filing a complaint to WorkSafe.
Paradis was also contacted by Netsafe about removing the post.
“I felt sweaty and shaky, and really scared,” she told Newsroom. “I felt like nowhere was safe. I felt like he was going to keep finding ways to attack me from different angles.”
Paradis’ post remained online, where others shared similar stories.
Anonymous replies included the following:
“I work with youth in the climbing community, and some have worked at Extreme Edge. They have told me about similar sorts of experiences. So whenever a new one talks about wanting to work there, I inform them of the trend that is seen there and what to do if that happens to them, should they take up a job there. I don’t want them to be blindsided and unsupported.”
A screenshot from a separate Facebook group was shared in the thread, from someone seeking advice.
“I’m a parent of a worker at Extreme Edge, the climbing gym on Morrin Road. There is a terrible culture there which stems from the management and down to some (not all) team leaders that work there.”
They said they were hearing “a lot of grievances from staff” about belittling and name calling, and young staff often saw no recourse but to quit. “… Often this is only their first or second job so they do not understand how they ‘should’ be treated in the workplace.”
The parent believed the majority of those affected were young women, although the poor treatment was extended to anyone who got on the “wrong side” of management.
“These staff members are worried about sticking up for themselves because of the potential repercussions.”
They alleged staff were observed closely on video footage and disciplined, and disgruntled ex-employees banned from the gym.
Paradis told Newsroom she thought management benefited from the system being “relaxed” about harassment.
“I told WorkSafe to interview staff, but they didn’t. I told WorkSafe [Dodds] is manipulative, and intimidates people from speaking up.” She also felt her concerns about safety in the gym were not taken as seriously as they should have been.
Paradis has since returned to Canada.
“If I ever try and climb in a gym again I feel like people will know my name because he has discredited me. I would not be reaching out to you if I wasn’t moving back to Canada.”
Dodds, who has been manager since 2020, told Newsroom the comments were not true, and that they had been reported to Netsafe given it was the “only course of action that could be made to have them removed”.
“… it is a very horrible position to be publicly accused of something you have not done, by individuals who hide their identity so they are not accountable for their untrue statements.”
He said the video footage was used to investigate “near misses and any incidents that may occur in the intention of keeping our customers safe and our standards at the highest level to prevent incidents”, and no staff were asked to perform tasks without training and having to demonstrate their ability.
Asked if Extreme Edge’s workplace culture discouraged staff from expressing concerns, he responded: “We are but a climbing gym, where individuals and groups come to enjoy themselves, if this wasn’t a place where that happened customers and staff would not come”.
He also said: “If any individual felt we had fallen short in any way we would be reported and a grievance raised against the Extreme Edge.”
Buik, too, said any insinuations of wrongdoing by Dodds were “completely false”.
He said the gym did employ a lot of young staff, “so for many, working at the Extreme Edge is their first job which can be a steep learning curve for some. The vast majority of our staff complete their training manuals with flying colours and learn to develop a great work ethic.”
He pointed to a “small number of ex-staff who decided that working at Extreme Edge was not a good fit for them”.
“In 25 years I have banned two former staff members for making foul and untrue comments about Extreme Edge on social media and spreading false rumours in the climbing community,” Buik said.
Dodds did not respond specifically to Newsroom’s question about whether he had banned, or threatened to ban or trespass, former staff and customers from the gym.
Another longtime former employee, who left in 2020, was due to appear in court as a witness for WorkSafe’s case against Extreme Edge before the company pleaded guilty.
He told Newsroom the verdict was a welcome censure, but “little more than that”.
He was especially disheartened given word continued to come out of the gym about “poor behaviour”.
“It was within WorkSafe/the prosecutor’s power (and there is precedent) to require certain actors to no longer have anything to do with the running of the place. This would have been a far better outcome than financial penalty.”
