I don't know why this is heart wrenching to me.
Full Story (https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/us/georgia-teen-dies-skydiving-trnd/index.html)
QuoteJeanna Triplicata wasn't a thrill-seeker, but she decided to try something daring after graduating high school: going skydiving for the first time.
The 18-year-old and an experienced instructor died when something went wrong on the tandem jump in Thomaston, Georgia, on Sunday.
That is awful bad luck. Just goes to show nothing is risk free. :(
It's odd that both chutes malfunctioned including the emergency chutes. It could be a coincidence though. Things happen.
What gets me is the girl had never done anything risky in her life and the day she chooses it is the day she's killed. Her family watched it happen and that is going to be with them forever.
when i lived in texas a man died in front of his family in an ultralight accident.
he was flying around in his motorizwd hang glider about 600 feet above the airport when the seat broke loose and dropped him.
when i was a kid in asia these events were legally classified as "death by misadventure . . . " like getting smacked by a falling coconut on a breezy day.
that latter was fairly common, by the way
When I was in the Philippines I didn't think about falling coconuts, nor when I was in Jamaica. I'd have been looking up to see which tree had them instead of looking forward and watching out for the trees.
what were you doing 8nthe philippines?
i lived near manila for awhile
I spent a couple of weeks there visiting someone I met online. I got to see a lot of how people live in third world countries. Some lived under a flat roof of some type held up by four poles, that's it. They also lived very close to landfills.
The town was Cagyan de Oro (City of Gold). I don't know why it was called that though. Most of the people were poor. Even those who had houses. You probably know all this already.
i lived there over fifty years ago
lots of povrty then as well
I read a great biography of a tank commander called 'Tank Sargent'. He went through all kinds of shit in Vietnam but was finally invalided out by a coconut that fell on his stomach while he was sun bathing on a beach. It exacerbated internal injuries caused by a land mine. The Dr said that any other injury of that nature would probably kill him. So home he went.
coconuts can be treacherous things.
during a typhoon you can climb a coconut but if you tie off too low you will be drowned by the storm surge. if you climb up higher you might not drown but you can be killed by blowing coconuts. if you go up too high you escape the water and the nuts but risk flying off into the sky with the crown if it breaks off.
the solution to weathering a typhoon in a copra plantation is an existential problem not always faced by those of us in the west.
thank you