Not suitable for an accident thread

[JayB]

I'll probably get flamed for this or told to "take it to Cafe Sensitivo", but here goes:

 

I'm pretty disappointed in the recent behavior of folks on this board with regards to the thread about the yellowjacket tower accident. I think people lost sight of the fact that there is a very severely injured REAL person with friends and family who are likely very traumatized by this event and who have probably looked at this website for answers/discussion/information about the accident. They must think we are a bunch of assholes.

 

Even if the guy was a "bumbling mountie with no business in the mountains" (which there is no evidence for by the way) and he did something wrong which caused him to fall, he didn't DESERVE to get hurt. It is a tragic situation and we should all keep our mouths shut, with the possible exception of offering our condolences, until the facts and outcome are known. And even then, Mountie-bashing and general spray have no place in a thread about an injured person (my opinion). Start a new thread for those sorts of discussions.

 

When a friend of mine was severely injured recently, it was comforting to me and him to read the good wishes and a hopes for a speedy recovery posted on this website. I'm sorry that this guy hasn't gotten the same sympathy.

 

I hope we treat threads about injured/deceased climbers with a little more respect in the future.

 

OK, that's the end of my little rant.

 

I sincerely hope this guy recovers completely and quickly and that his friends and family find solace.

 

To Off_White for splitting up the spray/accident thread: Thanks.

 

Cheers!

 

Hey Pax:

 

Good post. What I've noticed is that when word gets out early that an accident involved someone from the board or a friend of theirs, there's lots of sympathy and support and things generally stay on topic. When no one seems to know the folks involved, there's less social pressure to keep the commentary/speculation within the same bounds.

 

I don't think anyone meant any harm, but I also think that being on the other side of an accident - e.g. actually there - changes your perspective quite a bit.

[archenemy]

It is called respect and everyone deserves some (well most do anyway)...

"Not just any man gets my respect. He has to get on his knees in the dirt and beg for it."

Deep Thoughts

by

My Favorite Author

[RuMR]

Actually, I'm only bitter about the way you put down retards.

truth hurt?

[archenemy]

Easiest way to fix that is to enjoy pain.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Easiest way to fix that is to enjoy pain.

 

spoken like a true dominatrix

[Alpinfox]

...What I've noticed is that when word gets out early that an accident involved someone from the board or a friend of theirs, there's lots of sympathy and support and things generally stay on topic. When no one seems to know the folks involved, there's less social pressure to keep the commentary/speculation within the same bounds.

 

 

Yeah, I've noticed that too, and it's understandable. For example, the chance that the families of the folks that recently died on Everest are going to come across the thread about the accident here are small, and even if they do, we are just some random website halfway around the world from the victim's families. I doubt any stupid spray here will mean very much to them. I still don't think it is acceptable to be crass or dismissive about those deaths, but it's less offensive to me due to the fact that I don't know them, they are far away, and their families are less likely to be severely affected by anything we say.

 

In this case, Hardy is a local and it's pretty much guaranteed that he and his family and friends will read this stuff eventually. And it's already been demonstrated that several people on this website do actually know this guy.

 

I don't think anyone meant any harm...

 

While no one spraying about "Mounties are the suck" or even "Yellowjacket tower is only 5.4 and doesn't need a bolt" or whatever probably meant to insult/offend Hardy or his friends/family, I think it most certainly did.

 

That thread went from "Hardy Batchelor is comatose in the hospital" to "Mounties are a threat to themselves and others and I hate waiting behind them" within a dozen posts or so.

 

This guy is STILL comatose in the hospital. I don't think it's appropriate to be saying anything except "get better soon" at this point. If folks need to immediately start analyzing the accident, criticizing the participants, etc, it should be done in a separate thread. In this case, the spray wasn't even germane to to accident. It was just tangential crap and I'm glad it was cut out.

 

 

[archenemy]

Your points are valid and well stated.

 

Not to defend crassness, but let's give a little room for folks to deal with this type of info in this way. Let's remember that folks on this board face the same threat of injury, death and accident that we are posting so crassly about. Maybe a way to deal with the stress that this knowledge may cause (for some folks) is to be crass or to "laugh in the face of death" as it were.

 

I am not excusing bad behavior. I am not saying that I do not post inappropriate responses. I am saying that a little forgiveness for being merely human may make reading off-color posts a little easier.

[olyclimber]

Just so we're on the same page here, cube mates:

If somebody gets hurt, don't poop in the announcement. If you don't have something nice to say there, then don't say anything at all. If you have a comment about practice, technique, herds of people, bolts, etc...go ahead and create a seperate thread to discuss those items.

 

Excellent idea! I propose we adopt this starting immediately.

[mattp]

I agree with you, Archy, but really I think you are focussing on a mirror image of the greater issue: there is much more of a problem with people on this board being unable to talk about moderate climbs or Mountaineer accidents than there is with people not being allowed to joke about cheating death or complain about the Mountaineers.

[Alpinfox]

Your points are valid and well stated.

 

Not to defend crassness, but let's give a little room for folks to deal with this type of info in this way. Let's remember that folks on this board face the same threat of injury, death and accident that we are posting so crassly about. Maybe a way to deal with the stress that this knowledge may cause (for some folks) is to be crass or to "laugh in the face of death" as it were.

 

I am not excusing bad behavior. I am not saying that I do not post inappropriate responses. I am saying that a little forgiveness for being merely human may make reading off-color posts a little easier.

 

Yeah. I agree.

 

Let's just keep in mind that this is a public bulletin board and that our "laughing in the face of death/injury", while perhaps theraputic for ourselves, is likely not seen that way by outsiders when it is scrawled on the obituary page of their loved one.

 

Jeebus. I'm feeling like a tight-ass complainer now.

 

 

[cj001f]

I agree with you, Archy, but really I think you are focussing on a mirror image of the greater issue: there is much more of a problem with people on this board being unable to talk about moderate climbs or Mountaineer accidents than there is with people not being allowed to joke about cheating death or complain about the Mountaineers.

 

a few too many before posting?

 

I know you dislike the tone of cc.com and think it intimidating - there are other communities out there much more welcoming and less rancorous, stupid, inane, childish.... with even less information because nobody bothers to spend time there.

[mattp]

For sure, cc.com lies somewhere along a spectrum. But what is your point, cj: do you argue that in fact it is harder to joke about cheating death or rip on the mounties on cc.com than it is to ask some newbie question or talk honestly about a Mountaineer accident? Or are you simply saying you would target a different place along that spectrum than I would?

[archenemy]

Simon Hamilton, 35, admitted in Canterbury (England) Crown Court in April that he took furtive "upskirt" photos of women standing in public places and even acknowledged having an extensive collection, but he denied that the pictures gave him sexual gratification. Rather, he said, he was merely a habitual collector of things and spent his time cataloguing the photos rather than looking at them. "It was the sort of gratification of a job well done," he explained, telling the judge that he came from a long family line of collectors. (Besides, Hamilton said, his upskirt days ended around 2001, when he decided to re-enter the practice of law and realized that upskirt photography was "no longer ... appropriate." (At press time, no verdict had been reported.) [bBC News, 4-26-06]

 

It is interesting how lawyers look at things.

[AlpineK]

Every few years I have to update my industrial first aid certificate. The class is always taught by a firefighter, and one of the subjects that always comes up is how people involved with accidents or rescues deal with the mental stress it puts on them.

 

One way that a couple different instructors pointed out is to make jokes and crass comments about the accident/victim. It's not that they don't care it's just that it is a way of dealing with seeing some fucked up shit on a regular basis.

 

Climbers are in this boat too. I'm sure accident reports remind people that something similar could happen to them, and whether conciously or subconciously they need to deal with it.

 

Sure it's a public forum, so we need to have some respect to the victim/family. I just figure that for every accident there needs to be two threads one respectful one on the climbers board and the other one in spray.