What a tragic day for the Winter Olympics...Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed during a practice run on the Luger track. I have many thoughts to consider about this tragedy and I will do my best to explain my position through a personal experience.
While raising money for handicapped children on a haunted hay ride, I became seriously injured. Oh it was my fault and luckily, unlike the Olympics, no one else was subjected to my stupidity.
I opted to have two aerial scenes where I would come from above to frighten the hay riders. On one scene, I had several rather bad practice runs that resulted in quick decisions and a huge failure on my part to recognize safety issues. There were several fast passes, a near miss of a broken tree that almost went up my spine. With a new repelling rope and the wrong gloves; too cheap to buy the real ones...I made one last attempt before night fall. I came down way too fast again, only this time, my leg snapped and it was lying beside me. In shock, I reached down and set my leg back in place.
Why did I ignore the warning signs? Was it ego? Who knows! But, the question that comes to me is this; "with so many professionals watching the practice runs fail several times before this young man was killed; why did they not raise the caution flag and re-evaluate the track?" Unlike me, they had many people available to discuss the issue. Safety should always be the number one concern for the designers of these courses and events.
Sure you will have accidents as a result of the inherent dangers associated with all sports. However, do we need to add to the inherent dangers for the sake of saving money by cutting corners or simply failing to stop the practice runs to evaluate the situation? Very sad that no one made this important decision. Moving forward: My heart and prayers go out to his family, friends, team mates and coaches. Perhaps this will be a lesson not forgotten.
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