2 dead & 6 injured as teens take after hours sled ride down Winsport bobsleigh track

[sureLoss]

This is the intersection of the bobsleigh and luge sections.

Spoiler!

Obviously the gate blocking the luge section was moved over to block off the bobsleigh section in this incident.

The kids would have had almost no chance to slow down as the bobsleigh track just turns and the gate is right there. May have been impossible for them to see the gate and even attempt to slow down before hitting it.

[Minnie]

They were friends with my cousin's kid (the twins). I don't think he was with them as I imagine we'd have heard by now, if he was involved.

[OldDutch]

Wife just chatted with her friend who works at a specialist treating the surviving kids. Safe to say the "took time to identify the survivors" sounds bang on. Some of those kids are going to be severely permanently disfigured. Really sad situation.

I remember doing stuff like that at that age. In fact we got it in our head at 16 to be the first to drive over canyon meadows overpass. So when the bridge was half done we broke in and ripped over Macloead Trail. I think we were driving on plywood in some spots.

Anyways, kids will be kids. The dumb things we think are cool, survive and look back at nearly 40 and laugh is the way it is supposed to go. Just tragic all round.

[OMG!WTF!]

We used to do some stupid stuff too but it was always stuff we were good at. I rappelled off of buildings and bridges but I was an expert climber. I wouldn't ski out of bounds very often but my avalanche savvy friends did. Sadly you give anybody a Canadian Tire toboggan and they automatically know how to use it.

I think we should teach different stuff in junior/senior high. Scrap badminton class and teach something with consequence.

[JonDuke]

Twin brothers identified:
http://www.660news.com/2016/02/06/fa...-olympic-park/

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

Lot of people on social media claiming to be former employees and saying it was pretty common for people to go down the track after hours.

Technical data for the track says a 4 man bobsleigh would be going about 96.6 km/h at that point in the track

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...park-1.3437391

This quote is from an actual Bobsledder

I snuck in and went down the track about 20 years ago.

Ruined a pair of jeans and scraped up my knees and shins really bad, part of the track had melted.

There was no 'gate' then that I noticed.

[OutOfTheCube]

Am I the only person that doesn't remember doing anything life-threateningly stupid when they were a teenager?

[TheAlpineOracle]

I'm not a parent so I don't really know, but is it common for a group of 16-17 year olds kids to be out roaming around at 1:30 in the am? It wasn't in 1998 when I was that age, but that was a long time ago.

[bigtmac19]

Originally Posted by TheAlpineOracle

I'm not a parent so I don't really know, but is it common for a group of 16-17 year olds kids to be out roaming around at 1:30 in the am? It wasn't in 1998 when I was that age, but that was a long time ago.

Certainly that wasn't within the rules for mine, but if a kid just decides to stay out one night it's really beyond a parent's control.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by TheAlpineOracle

I'm not a parent so I don't really know, but is it common for a group of 16-17 year olds kids to be out roaming around at 1:30 in the am? It wasn't in 1998 when I was that age, but that was a long time ago.

We would occasionally manage the old "I'm sleeping at Steve's place" trick, and end up crashing at the house of someone whose parents were out of town.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by TheAlpineOracle

I'm not a parent so I don't really know, but is it common for a group of 16-17 year olds kids to be out roaming around at 1:30 in the am? It wasn't in 1998 when I was that age, but that was a long time ago.

It sure was common

[polak]

I went down the Kimberly ski hill on a saucer and jumped off waaaay too late and smashed through a fence and smoked a stone wall at the bottom a few years ago. All my friends thought I was seriously hurt but luckily they had padding on the wall or who knows what would've happened.

This incident was obviously another level but it doesn't take much for dumb fun to turn into something horrible like this.

[jschick88]

Jordan and Evan Caldwell, the twins who died early Saturday morning while attempting to toboggan down the bobsled track at Canada Olympic Park, were former employees, park officials have confirmed.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...437779?cmp=rss

[AC]

Apparently the twins went down first and were essentially cushions for everybody else that came after.

Yeesh.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by AC

Apparently the twins went down first and were essentially cushions for everybody else that came after.

Yeesh.

That's what I assumed happened.

With the way that wall tapers, it was probably pretty gruesome.

[Peanut]

Originally Posted by getbak

That's what I assumed happened.

With the way that wall tapers, it was probably pretty gruesome.

Looking at the photo Sureloss posted... there's a chain that would be going across the track at the start of the gate, and then the gate tapers the track off into a triangle. So you'd hit the chain first with your face or neck, and then get squished into the taper area. Just comoletely horrifying. I really feel so awful for everyone involved, including the first responders.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by polak

All my friends thought I was seriously hurt but luckily they had patting on the wall or who knows what would've happened.

Like someone was there to pat you on the back to cushion your impact?

[AC]

Originally Posted by Peanut

Looking at the photo Sureloss posted... there's a chain that would be going across the track at the start of the gate, and then the gate tapers the track off into a triangle. So you'd hit the chain first with your face or neck, and then get squished into the taper area. Just comoletely horrifying. I really feel so awful for everyone involved, including the first responders.

Apparently the twins were decapitated. Ugh, just awful.

[Sainters7]

Good Lord! Awful. And the news of them working there makes more sense now. Apparently I wasn't the wild, uber-confident teenager a lot of you were cuz even high school aged Sainters would've known that could only end poorly and wouldn't be on board. But working there and feeling more familiar with the track, combined with being a bored teen on a Friday night makes a lot more sense how it happened. Just tragic all around.

[Sr. Mints]

I had the same thoughts yesterday morning: my friends and I were basically total idiots in my teens, but escaped unscathed. It's a shame these guys did not.