Tandem Accident today

[Beerlight 0]

CNN just just scrolled news of a Tandem jump with fatalities in Oahu today.

[jumpergirl 0]

Oh no! My thoughts and prayers are with the families!

[misskriss 0]

Read in the incidents forum

[lippy 918]

BSBD...And apparently she was doing a tandem as a Christmas gift. So sad to hear this, especially this time of year

I got nuthin

[skyboyblue 0]

yeah, this person was a young mother who just graduated from high school and is not far from here. Its all over the news. They even pegged a local jumper to talk on camera. Thank god it was mark ferrell, who was also on the 300way last week. An excellent choice if they had to ask someone around here.

[DivaSkyChick 0]

This is beyond horrible. A moment of silence, please.

---
www.facebook.com/mandyhamptonfitch

[outofit 0]

BSBD

It is better to be dead and cool than alive and uncool!

[jraf 0]

ok children, whatever happened should not discourage us from doing what we love. it hurts, but once in a while it happens. just like when you drive a car. you might be hit by a truck. as bad as it is, children leave the aircraft! it's safer outside!

jraf

Me Jungleman! Me have large Babalui.
Muff #3275

[riddler 0]

Moment of silence for a good jumper and someone not too afraid to live her life.



Now, that having been said, I didn't want to post this to incidents because it's not directly related to the incident. Can I just say for the millionth time how much I hate the media and give yet another example of why I don't watch TV, don't read the newspaper and don't listen to radio stations?

Here is the an excerpt from the news report so far:

"when their parachutes did not open and the two were killed.

The accident happened at 2:35 p.m. According to emergency personnel at the scene, the parachutes were tangled or did not open in the proper sequence."


The first paragraph says that the parachutes did not open and the second says that they were tangled. I guess it's more sensational to say that "THE PARACHUTE DIDN'T OPEN!!!", even if immediately followed by a statement that it did. The sad thing is that most people that don't understand skydiving will remember the first thing and completely gloss over the second.

The media has got to love skydivers. Everyone has heard of it, few people understand it, and everyone thinks it's incredibly dangerous. They can fabricate anything they want to about skydiving to sell a story.

I hope that each of you gets to experience the media directly as I have, not only in skydiving, but in other facets of your life. Pretty soon you realize that they are wrong about EVERYTHING. Then you have to ask yourself, is it really worth polluting your mind with non-sensical half-truth garbage?

K, I'm getting of the ol' soapbox now

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[wmw999 2,589]

To the general public, an open parachute is one that lands safely. A partly-open parachute, or an open container, or anything else, is not an open parachute.

We don't like that definition. It therefore might behoove us to do something to change that. Really.

I'm amazingly ignorant about tournament fishing. It's got scales? Hey, it's a fish. I wouldn't know a big bass from a big trout.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[scottbre 0]

Quote

The first paragraph says that the parachutes did not open and the second says that they were tangled. I guess it's more sensational to say that "THE PARACHUTE DIDN'T OPEN!!!", even if immediately followed by a statement that it did. The sad thing is that most people that don't understand skydiving will remember the first thing and completely gloss over the second.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here, but what difference does it honestly make whether the parachute was open, partially open, or still in the container? They still died skydiving. Maybe the media doesn't fully understand every little intricacy of skydiving, but when it comes to fatalities, dead is dead. Their definition of it is the same as ours. The only thing resulting from complaining about the media's lack of perfect pinpoint accuracy after something like this happens is that the skydivers complaining could be seen as callous and uncaring.

"Your mother's full of stupidjuice!"
My Art Project

[narcimund 0]

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Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here, but what difference does it honestly make ...

In this case, perhaps none. In other incidents, it can mean the difference between the public understanding who was or was not responsible.

In a recent AFF death incident, the local media reported over and over the presumption that gear problems killed the student. The sheriff somehow determined from early witness comments that the student was in a constant turn until impact because the parachute failed.

What the sheriff and the media insisted on ignoring was that the turn was probably caused by the unconscious student slumping in the harness of a perfectly working parachute.

This is just one example where the media's miniscule error makes the difference between the public hearing about the truth about a sad but unavoidable, guiltless accident and thinking the DZ had provided shoddily maintained, death-trap equipment.

Accuracy and understanding count and can easily mean falling off the line between fact and complete fiction, unnecessarily damaging people's lives and livelihoods, fueling lawsuits, and haunting people with guilt or anger for the rest of their lives.

(Edited to fix some confusing sentences.)

First Class Citizen Twice Over

[freakous 0]

[Accuracy and understanding counts and can easily split the difference between falling off the dividing line between fact and complete fiction, unnecessarily damaging people's lives and livelihoods, fueling lawsuits, and haunting people with guilt or anger for the rest of their lives.

[Iflyme 0]

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Can I just say for the millionth time how much I hate the media and give yet another example of why I don't watch TV, don't read the newspaper and don't listen to radio stations?

Dude, lighten up ... the journalist who wrote the article is NOT an expert in skydiving. The writer is doing their best to interpert a complex situation in an extreme sport that has lots of strange jargon. You, on the other hand, have a much deeper knowledge of the sport.

They can fabricate anything they want to about skydiving to sell a story.

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I hope that each of you gets to experience the media directly as I have, not only in skydiving, but in other facets of your life. Pretty soon you realize that they are wrong about EVERYTHING. Then you have to ask yourself, is it really worth polluting your mind with non-sensical half-truth garbage?

Wow -- a little anger to deal? Unless you read the National Enquirer, YOU are the one who is wrong. People in the media work very hard to deliver information about what is happening in our communities, our cities, our countries. They make every effort to be accurate, but as I said before, it is impossible to be an expert on every subject.

[narcimund 0]

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People in the media work very hard to deliver information about what is happening in our communities, our cities, our countries. They make every effort to be accurate, but as I said before, it is impossible to be an expert on every subject.

They might work hard, but they fail. I've been in a number of situations that got reported in the news and have never seen the reports in the paper spell out what happened accurately enough to be forgivable. They do not restrain themselves enough to just report verified facts. They consider it vital to interpret and conclude something from every story, even when it's not justified. They can't say, "A skydiver died today." They have to add, "because the something somethinged." Even if it's wrapped in a disclaimer like, "... according to the local sheriff," the reader walks away with a strong belief in the speculations.

It's rare that watching or reading a report will give you a valid understanding of the facts. The only thing you gain from news is overconfidence.

I think the fault lies in the fifth "W". It shouldn't be there except in the VERY rare instance that the reporter has dug all the way and found TRUTH. There should be a high standard for completeness before they start discussing why things happen.

First Class Citizen Twice Over

[riddler 0]

People in the media work hard to sell you tripe. The product of a media in a capatilistic society - not that the media in a any other society is good. They don't work hard at all, except to fabricate the most sensationalist story possible to get viewers and readers sucked in.

And yes, the details about opening make a big difference in public opinion. The common thinking among people that are considering tandems is "what if the chute doesn't open", and the media loves to play into misunderstood fears like that. 98% of whuffos probably don't know that the canopy almost always comes out, and there are procedures for dealing with that situation. About half of whuffos I talk to don't even know that we all wear reserves (followed usually by the question "what is a reserve?").

Stories like this are bad for our sport. The fact that it happens should be reported, but not in a way that makes people afraid. Unfortunately, the news is trying to sell you afraid. Fear is a great marketing tool for them.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[kingbunky 3]

It's pretty simple really... sensationalism sells. How many other people died today in traffic accidents? Did they make CNN? No, unless of course there was a tractor trailer involved. Why? Because traffic accidents are boring. Throw a tractor trailer into it, and now we have a story. They can feed the paranoia about sharing the road with a vehicle that weighs 40 tons or more. They can go on about how they are unsafe, how the driver worked too many hours etc., simply because the public in general does not understand them. Skydiving is no different. It is an 'extreme' sport that the general public can particpate in. I would like to see the same stories reported by a skydiving journalist, but you won't, because someone with knowledge would write a factual article that would reduce the sensationalism by educating the public, and that would be boring. Will there be follow-up to these media stories? Not likely. The public's appitite for the morbid has already been sated with the original piece, nobody really cares about the cause.

"Hang on a sec, the young'uns are throwin' beer cans at a golf cart."
MB4252 TDS699
killing threads since 2001

[slotperfect 7]

The issue I have here, having had personal experience with this, is that even when responsible, experienced, reliable people give the media SPECIFIC and ACCURATE information, using SPECIFIC terms (not slang), the media will "interpret" the interview so the viewers will understand it, or report it filtered with their own editorial opinions. Facts are facts. When they are filtered with editorial opinion they become opinions, not facts. The end result is a report that is unclear, and not helpful to the situation at all.

Arrive Safely

John

[novacaine 0]

whatever happened should not discourage us from doing what we love. it hurts, but once in a while it happens.


Thank you for yuor words of encouragement. The media will (and is) going to use this to rip the sport that we all love. BLue Skies