Well, this has been an unfortunate week.

[conuly]

Monday a boy went missing.

Tuesday we passed a three alarm fire on our way to the doctor's office. And the trucks KEPT coming and KEPT coming all the way there! Something like 33 units eventually. No deaths, at least, but I was worried when I saw them all.

Today two people drowned in the pool we go to for swimming. Well, one died, the other is in critical condition. We didn't make our swimming class today, as it happens, but that's really just as well.

And the missing by has been found dead. I actually found that out over on FRK, and what's really appalling is that the post was preceded by two or three comments "Well, now some kid just was kidnapped and KILLED, so what do you say NOW?" which is just... petty and small-minded. A kid is dead, I can't really see how it's the parents fault (I don't think it's criminal to allow your third or fourth grader to walk three blocks without you, although I do think it's wise to make sure he knows the route and understands some basic safety rules about who to ask for help in an emergency*), and nobody is saying it isn't tragic.

*Then again, he may have been told to trust other Jewish people (he wouldn't be the first child told to ask for help in-group), and unfortunately picked the wrong one. One good thing is we already know who did it, so there's no doubt on that front.

And it's only Wednesday. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but I hope it's nothing.

Comments

[crystalpyramid]

I think there may be something actually wrong with this week. I've got a list of awful happenings, although fortunately no deaths.

[conuly]

*hugs*

[crystalpyramid]

Thanks. ::hug::

[leora.livejournal.com]

I read about the murder, and it is very sad. It doesn't change my view of the world, but yeah, it's tragic. Tragic things happen sometimes. It's always unfortunate when they do though. I'm sorry about the drownings too.

[conuly]

One of them was a lifeguard, and there were lifeguards on duty as well. It literally makes no sense how the drowning happened, but it did. Sometimes, you just can't help everybody.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Drowning is weird. I almost drowned once. I was in shallow water, too. I just couldn't get my head up or my feet down. I was just stuck, in the middle of the water. It was shallow enough I could stand, but I couldn't get any leverage to get my feet to ground. I could move forward, but that didn't get my head to air. A friend pulled me up. Since then, I've had a lot of time to think about what I could have done to save myself, and I think maybe if I had tried to curl up into a ball, maybe I could have gotten either my head up or my feet down, but at the time I only had minutes, and some of my thinking wasn't as productive as I'd have liked.

I think sometimes you can just get into a bad situation, and sometimes there isn't somebody around to notice and help out. Especially since drowning often doesn't look like anything. I wasn't able to look like I needed help, since I couldn't get myself into much of a position other than one that was swimming under water, the only indicator of a problem was how long I stayed under the water, which requires noticing that I just kept staying under and not coming up for air. Fortunately, I had warned my friend first that I wasn't sure I could swim under water (I used to be able to, but hadn't in several years), so she was deliberately paying attention for signs of a problem. But I was really worried she wouldn't recognize that as a problem; I'm glad she did.

[rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com]

I imagine that 99 percent of the time it's perfectly safe for a child to walk three or four blocks on his or her own, and 1 percent of the time it's not. And you never know when it's going to be that 1 percent of the time. It's just a fluke, like the drowning was a fluke.

[conuly]

Well less than 1% it's not dangerous... or, rather, less than 1% it's not dangerous in such a way that you could not possibly have known about it. If there's a wildfire two blocks away, or if that block is known for having guns being shot off all the time, you probably already know.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Also, 99% of the time, the person who killed them was someone they knew.

[conuly]

You try to tell people, you try and you try....

I once got mad and just about blew up at two (female!) EMS workers who tried to talk me out of walking home (a 20 minute walk) because it was dark out.

Dark, but kinda chilly, and not that late either, as it was winter. They were both surprised and a little disbelieving to hear that most people who are raped are raped by people they already knew. Walking home in the dark? Well, that's a walk in the park for me.

[steorra (from livejournal.com)]

There are people at my church who are unwilling to let me walk the four blocks home in the dark.

I find it weird how differently people evaluate the dangers of driving and walking, as I posted about once here.

[conuly]

I've never understood why the dark is so much scarier than the daylight. Don't criminals need their sleep too?

[steorra (from livejournal.com)]

I wonder what the time distribution of different kinds of crime across the 24-hour cycle is. (I guess it would depend somewhat on what locations you're including.)