"once you become a parent, the nature of those calculations changes.”
True that. Having a child revokes one's license to risk one's life for foolish reasons - that was a big factor for me in giving up xtreme wilderness sports; too much chance of coming home seiously broken, or not coming home at all, and my baby needed me. But 'subway diving' isn't even a sport, unless one considers competing for the Darwin Award to be 'sport'.
Sheesh, I don't know what makes these cityfolk think they can just jump or climb up a smooth four and a half foot concrete wall. A lot of people can't get out of a swimming pool without a ladder while standing at that depth. And don't the words DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE appear quite prominently all around the dangerous vicinity? What more do they need, LED displays all over the subways, playing continual videos of actual people being crushed or electrocuted?
However, I don't think it's fair of them to write:
"An N train roared into the station, injuring Ms. Briceno, who is from Hamden, Conn., and killing her companion, Jose Gomez, a 29-year-old Brooklyn resident who had jumped onto the tracks to help her.
To wary New Yorkers, the circumstances seem unthinkable: mortal danger in exchange for a replaceable consumer product. Yet Mr. Gomez was at least the third New Yorker in six months to die after an ill-advised foray to the tracks."
Mr. Gomez didn't put himself in mortal danger for a replaceable consumer product. He put himself in mortal danger to help his heedless young friend, and lost his life in saving hers. Poor girl, she's going to live her whole life with the knowledge that he died because she valued a jacket over her own safety - if any good comes out of this tragedy, it'll be that someone else remembers it in time to not jump down into a death-trap after a mere piece of 'stuff'.
There's got to be safer ways to help someone who's down there, than by jumping in after them. I suppose they can't put access-ladders in the sides, because then fools would just climb down them; nor can they have rescue-gear accessible to the public, because the public would steal it or misuse it.
Once on a very reckless free-climb, about a hundred feet up, my husband tied a knot in the sleeve of his army jacket, to use as a rope to help haul me about 5 feet up the cliff-face he'd eroded in his climbing up it - the difference was that the rock wasn't sheer or vertical, so I did have footholds, even though crumbling ones. Even then, at the peak of my youthful prowess, I don't know that I could have done it on a concrete wall - certainly not in city clothes and girly shoes - and I sure couldn't do it now. And most cityfolk don't climb; most women and many men haven't got the upper-body strength to do a single pull-up; even the sturdiest of well-knotted ropes might not be enough to help them, let alone a coat-sleeve.
If one had several jackets or sweatshirts, it might be possible to knot them together in such a way as to form a loop long enough for the person to get a foot into it, and so hoist them up that way. That's at least a two-person rescue, though, and probably more if the person is heavy, and the rescuers would have to be damn quick off the mark, to get the rescue-gear assembled and put the plan in action before the train came.
I wonder how many people would be reluctant to risk their jackets to accomplish such a rescue, and would instead insist on "just jumping down there and boosting them out".
no subject
True that. Having a child revokes one's license to risk one's life for foolish reasons - that was a big factor for me in giving up xtreme wilderness sports; too much chance of coming home seiously broken, or not coming home at all, and my baby needed me. But 'subway diving' isn't even a sport, unless one considers competing for the Darwin Award to be 'sport'.
Sheesh, I don't know what makes these cityfolk think they can just jump or climb up a smooth four and a half foot concrete wall. A lot of people can't get out of a swimming pool without a ladder while standing at that depth. And don't the words DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE appear quite prominently all around the dangerous vicinity? What more do they need, LED displays all over the subways, playing continual videos of actual people being crushed or electrocuted?
However, I don't think it's fair of them to write:
"An N train roared into the station, injuring Ms. Briceno, who is from Hamden, Conn., and killing her companion, Jose Gomez, a 29-year-old Brooklyn resident who had jumped onto the tracks to help her.
To wary New Yorkers, the circumstances seem unthinkable: mortal danger in exchange for a replaceable consumer product. Yet Mr. Gomez was at least the third New Yorker in six months to die after an ill-advised foray to the tracks."
Mr. Gomez didn't put himself in mortal danger for a replaceable consumer product. He put himself in mortal danger to help his heedless young friend, and lost his life in saving hers. Poor girl, she's going to live her whole life with the knowledge that he died because she valued a jacket over her own safety - if any good comes out of this tragedy, it'll be that someone else remembers it in time to not jump down into a death-trap after a mere piece of 'stuff'.
There's got to be safer ways to help someone who's down there, than by jumping in after them. I suppose they can't put access-ladders in the sides, because then fools would just climb down them; nor can they have rescue-gear accessible to the public, because the public would steal it or misuse it.
Once on a very reckless free-climb, about a hundred feet up, my husband tied a knot in the sleeve of his army jacket, to use as a rope to help haul me about 5 feet up the cliff-face he'd eroded in his climbing up it - the difference was that the rock wasn't sheer or vertical, so I did have footholds, even though crumbling ones. Even then, at the peak of my youthful prowess, I don't know that I could have done it on a concrete wall - certainly not in city clothes and girly shoes - and I sure couldn't do it now. And most cityfolk don't climb; most women and many men haven't got the upper-body strength to do a single pull-up; even the sturdiest of well-knotted ropes might not be enough to help them, let alone a coat-sleeve.
If one had several jackets or sweatshirts, it might be possible to knot them together in such a way as to form a loop long enough for the person to get a foot into it, and so hoist them up that way. That's at least a two-person rescue, though, and probably more if the person is heavy, and the rescuers would have to be damn quick off the mark, to get the rescue-gear assembled and put the plan in action before the train came.
I wonder how many people would be reluctant to risk their jackets to accomplish such a rescue, and would instead insist on "just jumping down there and boosting them out".