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Does Anyone Else...
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| idoru |
... not feel sorry for this kid? Or am I just an ? :confused: This happened close to where I live, and he's a freshman at the HS that I graduated from last year.
| quote: | Abridged from the Everett Herald
MUKILTEO - John Pyles didn't think twice about giving his son a specialized skateboard for his birthday.
Now he'd give anything to take it back.
His son, 15-year-old Joe Pyles, is in intensive care at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. He suffered life-threatening injuries May 17 when he lost control of his longboard on a steep, winding road in Mukilteo and slammed into a parked sport utility vehicle, Mukilteo police said.
Since then, doctors have kept him heavily sedated because his injuries are so severe.
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Every bone in Joe's face was broken. He also suffered a punctured liver, ruptured spleen and a fractured right femur. Doctors had to amputate his right leg.
His condition has improved since then, according to a journal his family has posted on the Internet.
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Several of his classmates at Kamiak High School shaved his initials into their heads, and some have styled their hair into "JoHawks," said Chelsi Brooks, the older sister of Joe's best friend, Mitch Brooks.
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"To bomb hills, that's not traditionally what a longboard would be used for," Gormley said. "For the most part, a longboard is just going to be like a sidewalk surfer."
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John Pyles said he didn't know longboards were capable of going so fast. Had he known, he would not have bought one for his son.
"There's nothing on the road right now that can run these kinds of speeds without brakes on," Pyles said.
Tony Woodward, division chief of emergency medicine at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, said the bigger problem is where people choose to board.
When speeding down a hill, skateboarders and longboarders don't have enough time to safely react to parked or moving cars, he said.
Also, safety gear isn't designed to protect someone who is skateboarding too fast, Woodward said.
People should use designated skate parks, he said.
"Kids who are going 30 to 40 mph are usually pretty good at what they're doing, they just aren't doing it in a safe environment," Woodward said.
Joe and his friend, Mitch, often went longboarding together. David Brooks, Mitch's father, said he's talked to his son several times since the accident about the dangers of their sport.
Brooks isn't sure whether Mitch will longboard again.
It's up to him, his father said.
"Somebody asked me the other day, 'Did you take your son's longboard and cut it up and throw it in the garbage?'" Brooks said. "If anyone needs to cut it up and throw it away, it's going to be him. He's the one who needs to realize what a danger that is."
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"It doesn't matter what time it happened, it happened," he said. "It could have happened to anyone." |
http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06...a1skater001.cfm
Some quick facts that none of the news articles have reported...
- It was 2:00 AM
- The road is really, really windy and has virtually no lights at night
- Doctors estimate he was going 40-50 MPH
- It's been reported that he was a little intoxicated
I have pity for people who get into accidents. If a person is going about their daily life and a stranger comes out of nowhere and seriously screws things up, then I feel bad and will help out. Last year a family at the same school was in a serious car crash, nearly killing their son and leaving their daughter paralyzed. I donated.
However from the looks of things, the outpouring of pity for this kid is far greater than the outpouring for the car crash victims. Yes, the family received blood drives but aside from a small fundraiser, that's it. This kid, as I write this, has a festival called "Joe-A-Palooza" going on at my old school. He has an entire website dedicated to him. People made bracelets (the cliche livestrong ones) with his name on them. And for what? Getting drunk and riding down a dark hill into a parked car? Bull.
I feel no pity for him, absolutely none. I feel no pity for the dad. He was unaware that something with wheels would go down a hill at fast speeds? He thinks it didn't matter than it happened unsupervised at 2AM? I will give the dad points for recognizing that his son screwed-up and has to "cut it up and throw it away" but the fact that he doesn't know the basic laws of physics astonishes me.
I guess it's just the tremendous outpouring of pity for the dumbass that pisses me off the most. Granted he got seriously screwed-up and I do feel a bit bad for the injuries themselves, but he deserved them. I feel a bit ashamed that a school that I went to, that I used to think of as being a damn smart school, is ignorant enough to forget the fact that he seriously ed-up, and that he deserves it. So many parents, teachers and kids support him for doing something so, so stupid.
I do hope that he recovers as close to 100% as he can, but I also hope that he learned a serious lesson here.
/big rant |
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| Aquadyne |
| quote: | Does Anyone Else...
... not feel sorry for this kid?
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I don't. |
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| DJ RJT |
| I pity the human race for having not weeded out these genetic failures through a process of natural selection... Though, I do suppose this was a decent attempt. |
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| DigitalPhoenix |
Poor kid. I wanna give him all my money and go live under a bridge
:tongue3 |
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| KilldaDJ |
| i feel a bit of pity because of the pain recieved but other than that it just reminds me of that person who rode their bike into a wall and bled |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by idoru
Or am I just an ? |
I wouldn't be that harsh but, since you put it yourself that way, and you're being equally harsh on the kid, then I don't see why I wouldn't give you an affirmative answer for this question.
Really, the sole fact that you weren't there in order to see what really happened already takes away from you the possibility to judge. All your thoughts and assumptions came from a 3rd party, AND after the accident. This is enough to make your judgement unfair, and it's even worse that you might give yourself the illusion that "it was obvious".
On top of that, your attitude towards the kid is more pitiful than what happened to him. Being pissed off because he hurt himself (i.e. no one other than him was injured) and that people have shown simpathy makes me wonder how much you must be craving for attention yourself. |
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| Glow Wire Guy |
It's okay to feel sorry for people when bad things happen to them. Who hasn't done something stupid/wreckless at that age, especially if you are male? Most of us get lucky and emerge from those years unscathed, and some don't. Sitting in judgement of someone is not only a pointless waste of time, but it also arrogantly assumes that you are much smarter or superior. Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. But nobody's perfect, we all mess up. In any case, his leg had to be amputated, he's got more important things to deal with in his life than what Joe Blow on some Internet forum thinks of him.
/rant |
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| {b.s.e.} |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
I wouldn't be that harsh but, since you put it yourself that way, and you're being equally harsh on the kid, then I don't see why I wouldn't give you an affirmative answer for this question.
Really, the sole fact that you weren't there in order to see what really happened already takes away from you the possibility to judge. All your thoughts and assumptions came from a 3rd party, AND after the accident. This is enough to make your judgement unfair, and it's even worse that you might give yourself the illusion that "it was obvious".
On top of that, your attitude towards the kid is more pitiful than what happened to him. Being pissed off because he hurt himself (i.e. no one other than him was injured) and that people have shown simpathy makes me wonder how much you must be craving for attention yourself. |
pwnt :wtf: |
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| RapidFire |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
I wouldn't be that harsh but, since you put it yourself that way, and you're being equally harsh on the kid, then I don't see why I wouldn't give you an affirmative answer for this question.
Really, the sole fact that you weren't there in order to see what really happened already takes away from you the possibility to judge. All your thoughts and assumptions came from a 3rd party, AND after the accident. This is enough to make your judgement unfair, and it's even worse that you might give yourself the illusion that "it was obvious".
On top of that, your attitude towards the kid is more pitiful than what happened to him. Being pissed off because he hurt himself (i.e. no one other than him was injured) and that people have shown simpathy makes me wonder how much you must be craving for attention yourself. |
damn. ghandi has spoken. |
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| DjConfessions |
| i don't mind ur attitue toward him. he was intoxicated (in high school) at it was 2am. What's perplexing is the sympathy the community gives him over the car crash victims. And i dunno, if my friend told me he was drunk and was gonna go surfboarding at 2am in the morning on a dark windy street, i wouldn't stop to think "ya, that's NOT gonna be a dumb idea and that's obviously NOT gonna get someone hurt. Try juggling these chainsaws." Its just stupid that the community seems to be outreaching to him more than those crash victims. Just goes to show the what the social ladder in High School can do for you. in high school |
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| Subey |
The collective *We* try to balance 'Quality of Life' with minimum % maimed.
We could all run around in bubble suits but QoL would take too big a hit. So instead we accept that some will drown, some will break their necks and the rest will live to tell about it. But at least they will have something worth telling to tell... |
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| Marc Summers |
| longboards pwn |
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