Base Jumper Dies ... his own fault ?

Ickle Magoo

Snowie wrote: »

How ever, he could of been rescued bye 3 climbers... Multi pitch absails would of got him down or back up pretty quick I would say.. thats something all climbing instructor know how to do.....

Wouldn't that be dependant on getting anchors on the cliff-wall? Anchors strong enough to support the weight of two adults...depending on the cliff rock-type that could well have been a a non-runner, even if they did have all the necessary equipment to hand...which they probably didn't.

Redpunto

Quick answer, yes

Im a mum and dont intentially go out risking my life to get a thrill. Once you have kids its not just your life anymore and how you want to enjoy it, you give up that right as a parent. Maybe it was something he had not learnt or understood.

Snowie

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Wouldn't that be dependant on getting anchors on the cliff-wall? Anchors strong enough to support the weight of two adults...depending on the cliff rock-type that could well have been a a non-runner, even if they did have all the necessary equipment to hand...which they probably didn't.

well i would of said that in a position like that peatons are more then excusable after all its a life... Im just giving a possibility to a rescue is all

Mel99

All life entails risk and despite all our best science, none of us really knows which ones will kill us. You could get run over crossing the road whilst talking on your mobile, pedaling that bike you got to save a few bob, etc. People die for pretty stupid reasons sometimes! Does being a parent now mean that you can't take risks - hogwash. If you u don't take risks, how can you encourage your children to take risks. If we risk nothing, we learn nothing and cannot be the best person we could be if we only took the risk. If our lives stopped when we had children, no one would have any! I applaud this man's courage to do what his heart desired despite the risks.

Capt'n Midnight

CruelCoin wrote: »

Extreme sports require equipment that is not available on the general market and that sometimes has to be developed from scratch. These new manufacturing techniques, materials, etc then filter down into other products and other uses, thus advancing the human race and our general ability and knowledge.

A prime example (although war based) is the internet. never designed by civilians, this was initially created to serve as a war-time communication network and has since then been adopted by the general populace.

There are many examples of this.

Doing what is safe, and what has been done before has advanced nothing.

Please explain the risks to personal safety taken by the elders of the internet.

Yes there was some military funding for some projects but it wasn't directly related to warefare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET

The network was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense for use by its projects at universities and research laboratories in the US. The packet switching of the ARPANET was based on designs by Lawrence Roberts of the Lincoln Laboratory.

The moonshot didn't lead to non-stick frying pans. Yes it did speed up the miniturisation of computers, but that was going to happen anyway. Yes solar panel research was promoted by the first satellites, but it would have happened anyway.

Did bungee jumping lead to the development of new elastic polymers ?
Did zorb balls mean we have tougher plastics ?

Yes F1 uses new tech that eventually arrives on production cars. But is F1 the test bed or the instigator of those technologies ?



Please list any new technologies or materials hat have uses excluding extreme sports that have come from extreme sports.



Also I'd argue that these guys from Oxford University were pretty clever, not like Knoxville & Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangerous_Sports_Club

RustyNut

Man there are some badly uninformed posts on here.
Firstly yes this guy was responsible for his own fate as are the rest of us.

People are talking about the cost to society of the odd rescue, I wonder what it costs to look after all the couch jockies who develope depression, heart desease, obesity, cancer, and all the other first world issues caused by people who think life is about collecting materialist trophies and that adventure is what bear grills gets upto on the 50 inch plasma in the corner. If that is the life for you fair play but it's not for me.

Base jumps are not recorded anywhere except with individual jumpers so anybody saying this or that percent of jumpers get killed or broken up are just wrong. All fatalities are recorded, injuries might or might not be recorded as base injuries but nobody knows how many jumps take place.

I was once involved in an incident where a UK jumper died after an off heading opening and cliff strike, a similar incident to this, where within minutes there was a chopper on site(not sar equipped) and off duty pro sar people (also base jumpers)
They alerted the full time professional on duty team who turned up within an hour with a seaking chopper and all possable equipment. It is not possable for a winch man to be put onto a cliff, the risk of a snag on the cliff face is too high, the chopper is used only to put the people and gear as close to the rescue site as possable and evac the casualty after that it is down to human endever. Even with every possable bit of gear and the best will in the world it took nearly twelve hours to get to this guy who was 300 meters down a 1000 meter face, it was too late for him, RIP Terry.

Every body dies but not every body truly lives.

Ickle Magoo

Snowie wrote: »

well i would of said that in a position like that peatons are more then excusable after all its a life... Im just giving a possibility to a rescue is all

You mean pitons? Hammering pitons in down a 1000ft cliff in three hours? Next to a guy balancing on a narrow ledge on a rock face which (given it eventually collapsed) is clearly quite unstable? Probably not a goer either tbh.

Look, I know people are just throwing out random ideas - I'm just thinking of belay stations I've helped set on much smaller drops while having the equipment to hand - and thinking about those three short hours the emergency services had to get all equipment in place, get a qualified climbing rescue team in position and attempt rescue...it just doesn't seem feasible.

Zab

RustyNut wrote: »

People are talking about the cost to society of the odd rescue, I wonder what it costs to look after all the couch jockies who develope depression, heart desease, obesity, cancer, and all the other first world issues caused by people who think life is about collecting materialist trophies ...

Is there no line for you then? What if there's a 5% chance of a requiring a rescue? 10%? Also, the people requiring rescue will need standard medical care just as much, or at least almost as much, as everybody else. I'm all for socializing the cost of things, but there has to be some line where that doesn't apply.

Base jumps are not recorded anywhere except with individual jumpers so anybody saying this or that percent of jumpers get killed or broken up are just wrong. All fatalities are recorded, injuries might or might not be recorded as base injuries but nobody knows how many jumps take place.

Statistics can still be generated under these conditions, and can be pretty accurate. The 12% one that's being bandied around is not a good statistic.

Even with every possable bit of gear and the best will in the world it took nearly twelve hours to get to this guy who was 300 meters down a 1000 meter face, it was too late for him, RIP Terry.

What took them so long to get to him?

RustyNut

Zab wrote: »

Is there no line for you then? What if there's a 5% chance of a requiring a rescue? 10%? Also, the people requiring rescue will need standard medical care just as much, or at least almost as much, as everybody else. I'm all for socializing the cost of things, but there has to be some line where that doesn't apply.

Statistics can still be generated under these conditions, and can be pretty accurate. The 12% one that's being bandied around is not a good statistic.


What took them so long to get to him?

The rescue services are there for all of us, who should we leave out? No there should be no line.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics. Base jumping is mostly a clandestine activity so I don't see how any meaningful numbers can be collated.

There were weather issues, low cloud causing problems for the aircraft to land on the top of the cliff but all the gear and specialists there and available but getting to someone where this guy ended up was a mammoth task and to get to him with full rescue gear to recover a injured casualty was next to impossable, in the end he was found at the bottom of the cliff having made the decision to attempt a self rescue.

Like most of these incidents a serious of questionable decisions led to the situation but I am not immune to the occasional bout of stupidity and pay my insurance to cover this where possible.

Where would you draw the line?

johngalway

maglite wrote: »

We are entitled to do fun and stupid things.

I don't like the "e" word but fair enough, just as long as everyone realises that we're just as entitled to die from them while putting others at risk.

RustyNut

johngalway wrote: »

I don't like the "e" word but fair enough, just as long as everyone realises that we're just as entitled to die from them while putting others at risk.

I think most people who take part in adventure sports are well aware of the risks involved and the risk is one of the attractions.

I have jumped and regularly socialise with rescue workers, DFB, Wicklow mountain rescue and civil defence and to a man (and woman) they love the buzz of an unusual interesting tough rescue, the ones I know anyway.

Stark

In most cases, the (often vastly overstated) risks associated with adventure spots are far outweighed by the risk of a heart attack from sitting on your arse all day.

mossyc123

It wasn't me! wrote: »

My dad did his job because he liked it. There was plenty else he could have done far less dangerous. The point was that to do what he wanted, there was a risk element. Thanks for telling me why my dad did the particular job he ended up in though. Your authority is impressive.

You mentioned in your previous post why your dad did his job.

It was dangerous sure but you specifically said he did it to feed/clothe his family.

As to (b), to a certain extent, yes. I don't believe it's appropriate to base every decision on its potential impact on others. If I knew that someone restrained themselves from doing something they really wanted because of me, regardless of what it was, I'd feel like shít. That's wrong, to me. You get one go at this. Don't hold back. I wouldn't do it and I wouldn't ever want anyone else to do it for me.

There's a difference between basing every single decision on others and just being normal and actually thinking about others when making decisions.

Like maybe thinking about a dependent relative before you jump off a mountain.

As to your very narrow-minded interpretation of what I said, what has advanced humanity is our willingness to take risks and explore the unknown. The lunar expeditions served no specific purpose other than to prove it could be done. The vast human effort behind that is something we should be immensely proud of. It's absolutely the best thing we have going for us. All else is mediocrity.

And you're trying it again, trying to put thrill seeking alongside actual practical progression of the human race.

It ain't nothin of importance so don't try to pretend that it serves some ancient noble purpose to strive for progression.

Capt'n Midnight

Re Statistics

Parachuting from fixed objects: descriptive study of 106 fatal events in BASE jumping 1981–2006

The overall annual fatality risk for all object types during the year 2002 was estimated at about one fatality per 60 participants.

The ~12% is based on the cumulative risk




Interestingly in a relatively small sample 74% had witnessed a death.
http://journal.nzma.org.nz/journal/121-1277/3134/

The median time of participation in BASE jumping was 4 years (0.25–17 years.), and the median number of jumps was 275 (7–1600). All 4 objects were used as launching platforms, without any particular object preference.
Participants estimated that the frequency of “near misses” from jumping was 3% and injury was 0.5%. Interestingly, 26 subjects (74%) had witnessed the death of at least one jumper from BASE jumping.
....
As the study included only active jumpers, cautious BASE jumpers, who had given up the sport following an injury or a “near-miss” experience, may have been excluded. The sample may therefore represent those with a particularly high risk-taking propensity.

The survey would also have missed dead jumpers.

Zab

RustyNut wrote: »

The rescue services are there for all of us, who should we leave out? No there should be no line.

Obviously there should be a line, it's crazy to suggest otherwise. If there's no line then you don't believe anybody should be held responsible for their actions. However, I never suggested that people should be refused rescue, only that they should have to pay for it. Realistically this will unfortunately most likely mean mandatory insurance of some form. Where would I draw the line? I'm not sure, but I think it would be somewhat below base jumping. Mandatory insurance for cyclists has come up before. My heart says no but my head says maybe. Cycling is a more basic transportation need, so inability to pay would be more of a problem.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics. Base jumping is mostly a clandestine activity so I don't see how any meaningful numbers can be collated.

Ah yes, base jumping, the magical activity that defies statistics. The simple fact is that base jumpers as so unpredictable that any attempt to study them will end in failure.

We have statistics for all sorts of "clandestine" activities. Statistics are better if they're based on the entire population (such as the census) but extrapolations based on subgroups are useful too.

There were weather issues, low cloud causing problems for the aircraft to land on the top of the cliff but all the gear and specialists there and available but getting to someone where this guy ended up was a mammoth task and to get to him with full rescue gear to recover a injured casualty was next to impossable, in the end he was found at the bottom of the cliff having made the decision to attempt a self rescue.

Ok, that all sounds reasonable. With respect to the thread my interest was whether it would be reasonable for a rescue team to have been flown to the top of the cliff and abseiled down to give him a rope within the three hours before his death. To me it seems totally reasonable, but I have no experience with these things. When you said it took 12 hours I was thinking I may have way underestimated the task.

FanadMan

Turpentine wrote: »

There's a difference between accepting that death is eventually inevitable and actively trying to spit in its face for the buzz. It's not a case of "bubble wrap" and "base jump" being the only options.

I wasn't trying to argue one side or the other there - I've done and continue to do things that some would consider crazy or tempting death. I get a great buzz out of kiteing now same as when jumping out of a plane. Only difference is the degree of buzz versus the age lol. What I was trying to point out is that in my experience you should take risks otherwise you'll live your life like you were wrapped in bubblewrap.

Sorry if I'm still not making sense (don't think I'm making sense in my own head at the min) but think you were agreeing with me in a roundabout way - either take risks or not.

Jeez - hope you understand what I tried to say cos I'm not sure myself anymoree. Think will reply again when I sober up

yore

I like your manifesto, put it to the testo

padd b1975

RIP