So Inclined
Active member
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2017
- Messages
- 243
- Points
- 28
...die/get critically injured more often?
I'm talking, of course, about the skiers and riders I watch, by the score, almost every day, on a couple different "Jerry fail" Instagram accounts. Because I've got to admit, though it doesn't make me feel great about myself; I'm a little addicted to watching them. More than once I've cracked up laughing, even as I'm watching through my fingers and cringing. I'm laughing mostly because I'm assuming, without justification, that they weren't seriously hurt.
This has been all the more on my mind in the wake of the fatalities at Hunter (where I do much of my skiing), and following a recent death of a young kid at Southington (where I skied a bunch growing up.) The circumstances of these particular tragedies may be different from what we see in most of the fail videos - ostensibly, blunt force trauma from trees or rocks (the Southington death sounds like a head injury in a park - thought I read that the "no helmet" part of the story is incorrect too) vs. jumps and tricks and hubris going wrong. But still; what we can see constantly on these videos is skiers and riders out there taking hard, HARD impacts on parts of the body that you don't want to be taking many hard impacts on.
It's a bit mesmerizing yet nauseating to watch.
I watch snowboarders dropping cliffs and slamming down face first into the snow - or better yet, a snow-covered rock.
I watch skiers "send it" off jumps from way back in the back seat, hurtle 30 feet through the air horizontally, and come down on their spines.
I watch skiers and riders both throwing inverts - oh my god, so many more inverts than I ever see on my local mountains, where to try it would get your pass clipped, because to fail it would be quasi-suicidal - underrotating onto their ski tips, over-rotating onto their cervical vertebrae, or landing everywhere but on the bottoms of their skis.
I watch this buffoonery: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu6gDyLFC2r/
I watch this absurdity: https://www.instagram.com/p/BurN1-WlW-X/
I watch this stupidness: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt6YUlUF2wM/
I watch this: https://www.instagram.com/p/BuZ4EK-F--0/
And I wonder: is the question not "why are so many skiers and riders dying nowadays?" but, given how this kind of bad/overconfident/reckless/extremely risky skiing and riding seems to be A Thing now, "why aren't more skiers and riders dying nowadays?"
I'll anticipate someone's counterpoint; people DO get messed up really bad in these Jerry videos, we just don't see the aftermath. I'm sure that's true to some extent. I'd also suppose that, to the extent that many of these videos look to be shot at resorts out west, in deeper plusher powder, it isn't quite so terrible to come down on your neck or to scorpion kick yourself in the back of the head. Not quite so terrible, but still plenty painful and potentially damaging to your health.
I'm talking, of course, about the skiers and riders I watch, by the score, almost every day, on a couple different "Jerry fail" Instagram accounts. Because I've got to admit, though it doesn't make me feel great about myself; I'm a little addicted to watching them. More than once I've cracked up laughing, even as I'm watching through my fingers and cringing. I'm laughing mostly because I'm assuming, without justification, that they weren't seriously hurt.
This has been all the more on my mind in the wake of the fatalities at Hunter (where I do much of my skiing), and following a recent death of a young kid at Southington (where I skied a bunch growing up.) The circumstances of these particular tragedies may be different from what we see in most of the fail videos - ostensibly, blunt force trauma from trees or rocks (the Southington death sounds like a head injury in a park - thought I read that the "no helmet" part of the story is incorrect too) vs. jumps and tricks and hubris going wrong. But still; what we can see constantly on these videos is skiers and riders out there taking hard, HARD impacts on parts of the body that you don't want to be taking many hard impacts on.
It's a bit mesmerizing yet nauseating to watch.
I watch snowboarders dropping cliffs and slamming down face first into the snow - or better yet, a snow-covered rock.
I watch skiers "send it" off jumps from way back in the back seat, hurtle 30 feet through the air horizontally, and come down on their spines.
I watch skiers and riders both throwing inverts - oh my god, so many more inverts than I ever see on my local mountains, where to try it would get your pass clipped, because to fail it would be quasi-suicidal - underrotating onto their ski tips, over-rotating onto their cervical vertebrae, or landing everywhere but on the bottoms of their skis.
I watch this buffoonery: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu6gDyLFC2r/
I watch this absurdity: https://www.instagram.com/p/BurN1-WlW-X/
I watch this stupidness: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt6YUlUF2wM/
I watch this: https://www.instagram.com/p/BuZ4EK-F--0/
And I wonder: is the question not "why are so many skiers and riders dying nowadays?" but, given how this kind of bad/overconfident/reckless/extremely risky skiing and riding seems to be A Thing now, "why aren't more skiers and riders dying nowadays?"
I'll anticipate someone's counterpoint; people DO get messed up really bad in these Jerry videos, we just don't see the aftermath. I'm sure that's true to some extent. I'd also suppose that, to the extent that many of these videos look to be shot at resorts out west, in deeper plusher powder, it isn't quite so terrible to come down on your neck or to scorpion kick yourself in the back of the head. Not quite so terrible, but still plenty painful and potentially damaging to your health.
