Luger killed in sled crash opening day of Olympics

TangoWhiskey

TangoWhiskey

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Had those beams not been there would the result be much better? Short of a snow drift, departing the track at 80 mph doesn't leave a lot of good options.

At least he died doing something he obviously loved.
 
It's a sad occurrence. In a slight thread drift, here I am at 66 and resuming alpine skiing after a 25 year break. So far - so good, it's all coming back. However, in the last week there have been two skiing fatalities at Maine's Sunday River Resort. Those raise the rafters on my caution factor.

But back to Vancouver, we're rooting for our natives Bode Miller(skier) and Seth Wescott(snowboarder par excellence). Both came out of Carrabassett Valley(Sugarloaf USA). Go, USA!

H
 
Pi1otguy said:
Had those beams not been there would the result be much better? Short of a snow drift, departing the track at 80 mph doesn't leave a lot of good options.

At least he died doing something he obviously loved.
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I think a wall of plexi to bounce off of would have proved better than the sudden stop the beam caused. Fortunately, it's not likely he suffered at ALL, given the violence of the stop.
 
Lawreston said:
It's a sad occurrence. In a slight thread drift, here I am at 66 and resuming alpine skiing after a 25 year break. So far - so good, it's all coming back. However, in the last week there have been two skiing fatalities at Maine's Sunday River Resort. Those raise the rafters on my caution factor.

....
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What was the cause, if you don't mind me asking?

We've had, so far this season, 6 (I think). 4 were in bounds - 2 from tree collisions, 2 from tree wells (deep, loose powder under trees, as bad as quicksand...I know from experience). 2 were out of bounds in avalanches - one inexperienced kid about a month ago went OB at Vail by himself and got caught; yesterday, an avalanche down around Ouray caught a group and took one skier into a tree.

Bottom line is that if you're careful, you'll be fine. People mixing with trees seems to be the biggest problem at ski resorts. Don't do that, and you'll be fine. :)
 
. . . . best defined within http://www.sunjournal.com/node/792993.
Both accidents were on expert trails.

As for me, I've wisely relegated myself to a renewed Beginner(with updated equipment) status. I'm staying on the easier to Intermediate slopes and taking my time. At the top of one trail on Wednesday there was an instructor with a small herd of young students. I sensed that she was waiting for my friend and me to go. My friend pushed off; and on my way past the instructor I quipped, "On my 3rd ski outing after 25 years I should probably be in your class," and I was gone. After I arrived at the bottom and was in line for the lift the "herd" arrived. The lady instructor came alongside and said, "You looked just fine on your way down the trail; enjoy."

We left after about 2½ hours. The snowboarders -- amazing, some of the stuff they do -- were disturbing the surface and at 4:30 it was beginning to get icy. Though my friend has skied Vail, Canadian Rockies, Whistler, Switzerland, and other resorts, she's 70(never know it by her enthusiasm) and is keen to quit when conditions start to go South - "before we get hurt."

Just what I needed -- another expensive hobby. :o)))

HR

EDIT with photos taken after my first outing in 25 years. Yes, the humor scripting was in my post processing.
 

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TangoWhiskey said:
I think a wall of plexi to bounce off of would have proved better than the sudden stop the beam caused. Fortunately, it's not likely he suffered at ALL, given the violence of the stop.
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Haven't seen the vid (probably NSFW). Better, sure. But how much? At those speeds plexi would have left him with massive internal injuries
 
Pi1otguy said:
Haven't seen the vid (probably NSFW). Better, sure. But how much? At those speeds plexi would have left him with massive internal injuries
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The idea is that the plexi runs parallel to the track, so if you hit it, it is a glancing blow and your momentum is directed down the track where you eventually slide to a stop. Unlike hitting a pole where you go from 60 to zero in nothing flat.

The design was plain stupid - a row of I-beams 5' off of the track. Anyone with a little sense should have seen the risk. I'm surprised the participants didn't raise a loud enough protest to get that corrected before any practice runs.
 
They just showed the video on NBC. Very, very ugly. 90 MPH to zero in 1 second.
 
kyleb said:
The idea is that the plexi runs parallel to the track, so if you hit it, it is a glancing blow and your momentum is directed down the track where you eventually slide to a stop. Unlike hitting a pole where you go from 60 to zero in nothing flat.
I get that, but a loss of control sounds like he would have hit the plexi, start to rotate, then take some hits from side to side till he slides to a stop. Much more likely to survive, but life changing. 80+ mph involves a lot a of energy.

The design was plain stupid - a row of I-beams 5' off of the track. Anyone with a little sense should have seen the risk. I'm surprised the participants didn't raise a loud enough protest to get that corrected before any practice runs.
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I don't get it either. It's at the worst conceivable place, the outside of a turn.
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kyleb said:
The idea is that the plexi runs parallel to the track, so if you hit it, it is a glancing blow and your momentum is directed down the track where you eventually slide to a stop. Unlike hitting a pole where you go from 60 to zero in nothing flat.

The design was plain stupid - a row of I-beams 5' off of the track. Anyone with a little sense should have seen the risk. I'm surprised the participants didn't raise a loud enough protest to get that corrected before any practice runs.
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Absolutely. As soon as I saw the track I wondered "Who the hell signed off on that design?????? I-beams next to the track??? That's idiotic. One news commentator mentioned that they were unpadded. So what? Padding wouldn't have done squat. Plexi, as others have mentioned, would have been a perfect solution. Channel the rider down the course.

Appalling, and sad.
 
Yup..... Engineering 101................ Centrifugal force,

Poor guy.:frown2::frown2:
 
Pi1otguy said:
Had those beams not been there would the result be much better? Short of a snow drift, departing the track at 80 mph doesn't leave a lot of good options.

At least he died doing something he obviously loved.
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Would it have been better? Possibly...

Anything is better than a very real version of going splat at the hands of a group of murderous engineers.
 
Pi1otguy said:
Haven't seen the vid (probably NSFW). Better, sure. But how much? At those speeds plexi would have left him with massive internal injuries
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Saw the video and the stills of the afterward. He appears to not have brain function from the way the eyes look. I would say he was killed very quickly. Still it is sad.
 
Bet the posts get cut off before they run again. Too bad it's too late for him. RIP
 
kyleb said:
The design was plain stupid - a row of I-beams 5' off of the track. Anyone with a little sense should have seen the risk. I'm surprised the participants didn't raise a loud enough protest to get that corrected before any practice runs.
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I agree, especially after a sharp turn. I mean, if they want exposed I's for an architectural design reason, fine. Just place them away from the track. I nice tall wall on the upper part of this crash zone would have really hurt, but probably would not have been fatal.

If any of you have not seen the video... well, it's not overtly gruesome. He slides over the wall at a high rate and immediately stops. Yes, he is dead, but it's more important to note the faults in the track design. There was no reasons for this and I will be upset if steps are not taken to increase the safety for the medal events.

A big part of the Olympics is dedicated to going fast. He isn't the first to die, and he wont be the last.
 
Pi1otguy said:
kyleb said:
T
I get that, but a loss of control sounds like he would have hit the plexi, start to rotate, then take some hits from side to side till he slides to a stop. Much more likely to survive, but life changing. 80+ mph involves a lot a of energy.
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I would think it would be no worse than getting off a bike at the same speed.
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My God. I did see the video and my God. Just awful. I can't think he could have lived for even a minute after that. I do hope it was instantaneous. What he must have been thinking in the three seconds before impact though.

WHen I first saw the title here though for a split second I thought it was referring to Senator Lugar.
 
EppyGA said:
Bet the posts get cut off before they run again. Too bad it's too late for him. RIP
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If they cut the posts, the roof will fall down. :rolleyes:

They will probably extend the barriers coming out of turns... that, or a net, might have saved his life. Very bad luck for him to end up ricocheting right off the inside of that corner, but it could happen again.
 
rottydaddy said:
If they cut the posts, the roof will fall down. :rolleyes:

They will probably extend the barriers coming out of turns... that, or a net, might have saved his life. Very bad luck for him to end up ricocheting right off the inside of that corner, but it could happen again.
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They hastily built a plywood wall along the edge of the track preventing similar crashes in the future. They also moved the starts down course a few hundred feet to lower the speed of the course.

Like everyone else who viewed the original setup, I find it difficult to believe that anyone could be stupid enough to design let alone approve it. It won't surprise me if some lawsuits result.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
I think a wall of plexi to bounce off of would have proved better than the sudden stop the beam caused. Fortunately, it's not likely he suffered at ALL, given the violence of the stop.
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He was dead before his heart stopped beating. You cant go from 90 to nothing and not tear loose all sorts of connections - nerves AND blood vessels.. Unfortunately, the medical guy was there before he stopped twitching, and so there was no way he couldn't try... but everyone who's done major trauma who saw that... knew the score.

The only thing that COULD have saved him was a cage/plexi wall to keep him in the tube.. when you leave the course at 90 mph wearing nothing but a grin and spandex, it doesnt matter if the object you strike is padded or not.
 
woodstock said:
I do hope it was instantaneous. What he must have been thinking in the three seconds before impact though.
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Probably something along the lines of "Damn, I screwed up my line through that curve. Well, good thing this is a well-designed luge track so I won't die for my mistake." :frown3:
 
I thought I saw something this evening showing some kind of written report that essentially said there is nothing wrong with the track and that the guy just screwed up.
 
EppyGA said:
I thought I saw something this evening showing some kind of written report that essentially said there is nothing wrong with the track and that the guy just screwed up.
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You did. A statement like that from the Olympic Committee might have been the worst PR move ever.
 
kyleb said:
You did. A statement like that from the Olympic Committee might have been the worst PR move ever.
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I agree with the President of Georgia:

“With all due respect, and I may not be a competent person in this area, but one thing I know for sure is that no sports mistake is supposed to lead to a death. No sports mistake is supposed to be fatal. Mistakes do happen in sport, but we are talking about sports where there is competitiveness, where there is danger, but we should avoid whatever cause of death could be.”
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http://interact.stltoday.com/blogzo...ia-no-mistake-in-sports-should-lead-to-death/
 
With all due respect to the President of Georgia, there are deaths in sports that are the result of mistakes by athletes. I am not saying that this may or may have not been the case here, but it does happen.
 
dmccormack said:
I agree with the President of Georgia:



http://interact.stltoday.com/blogzo...ia-no-mistake-in-sports-should-lead-to-death/
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Anyone remember about 15 to 20 years ago the opening credits for ABC's Wide World of Sports showed someone cartwheeling down a ski jump? (while a narrator pens something about "the agony of defeat")..

That dude didn't make it either. Extreme sports have extreme consequences. Leaving the luge course at speed is one of those events that universally implies a bad outcome.

Its tragic.. but he volunteered... he was in a training run... and he was in graduate level play, not the bunny slopes. Lets not blame the tube. He's the only one out of how many people who ran down it? that sounds much more like human error than bad design.
 
Doggtyred said:
Its tragic.. but he volunteered... he was in a training run... and he was in graduate level play, not the bunny slopes. Lets not blame the tube. He's the only one out of how many people who ran down it? that sounds much more like human error than bad design.
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It was a terrible design -- VERTICAL I-Beams within arm's reach of a 90 MPH turn is beyond dumb -- it's negligence of the highest order.
 
stagecoachco said:
With all due respect to the President of Georgia, there are deaths in sports that are the result of mistakes by athletes. I am not saying that this may or may have not been the case here, but it does happen.
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Not really -- there's a difference between breaking your neck on a jump and riding a horse next to a river of lava.

This is no different from flying -- we should do all we can to manage to known risks. Vertical I beams within the expected trajectory of an errant luge is inane.
 
dmccormack said:
Not really -- there's a difference between breaking your neck on a jump and riding a horse next to a river of lava.

This is no different from flying -- we should do all we can to manage to known risks. Vertical I beams within the expected trajectory of an errant luge is inane.
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With all due respect, the risks are generally known by athletes, just like the risks are known by pilots.

We simply cannot - and should not - be protecting everybody from everything. Personal responsibility and judgement come into play. It's not like a world-class luger doesn't know that there are risks to going 90 miles an hour down an icey track. Had those posts not been there, he would have been ejected from the track and ended up in the road.

Every risk is managable if you want to go far enough. Heck, we have the TSA trying to manage us from unknown risks (at great monetary cost and great cost of our freedoms).

To continue your analogy, a GA plane without a BRS increases the risk of fatalaties if the plane goes out of control, so it must be insane to not require a BRS on EVERY GA aircraft. After all, it is a known risk and it can be managed.

I better stop here before I send this spinning into another part of the forum.
 
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wsuffa said:
With all due respect, the risks are generally known by athletes, just like the risks are known by pilots.

We simply cannot - and should not - be protecting everybody from everything. Personal responsibility and judgement come into play. It's not like a world-class luger doesn't know that there are risks to going 90 miles an hour down an icey track. Had those posts not been there, he would have been ejected from the track and ended up in the road.

Every risk is managable if you want to go far enough. Heck, we have the TSA trying to manage us from unknown risks (at great monetary cost and great cost of our freedoms).

To continue your analogy, a GA plane without a BRS increases the risk of fatalaties if the plane goes out of control, so it must be insane to not require a BRS on EVERY GA aircraft. After all, it is a known risk and it can be managed.

I better stop here before I send this spinning into another part of the forum.
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So why not have a 39' wide runway with Vertical I-beams implanted on the edges every 20' or so?
 
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