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

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Hockeyguy15

Why would people go to the hospital and say they were illegally going down the track? I doubt any called an ambulance to COP, or management would have been aware of it.

"I believe it was a boaking accident".

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by T@T

I remember a story years ago where a farmer put barbed wire across a fence opening to stop snowmobiler's from entering his land, a man died and his wife on the back seriously injured because for 2 years they took that route with obviously no problems. I'm not sure what ever happened but because the farmer didn't put up a warning sign people wanted him charged with manslaughter.

I'm not saying this is all on Winsport as they did have security guards(blind ones?) but after reading some comments online about how common this was I'm shocked this was the first time we had a tragedy.



I'm no lawyer but I suspect a lawsuit because of that gate and no warnings it was there. (I'm assuming there wasn't a sign)

If the investigation shows that they had a slack attitude towards health and safety and knew (or ought to have known) that people were using the track after hours without permission regularly, I think they could find themselves in trouble.

I know someone in Toronto that bought an old warehouse to develop the property. It was fenced and the building locked, but some kids found their way in and one was injured on the property. He was charged with something, but I don't know all the details. The "no trespassing" signs weren't enough.

I don't know about Alberta though.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by T@T

If infact people went to the hospital in the past there could be a record of it.

Oh, I fixed your sign.

I see the "or death could occur" part as unnecessary. Possibly even a challenge to someone so-minded.

I'm of the mind that there is only so far a company is required to go to protect someone from themselves. You've got a big fence with no easy access point. You have a sign on the fence that politely says "keep out and/or go away". If I decide to ignore both of those, what happens on the other side of fence is on me and my decision to ignore and circumvent them. That my decision to ignore those signs may have fatal consequences is unfortunate, but not the fault of the people/company/signs that tried stop me and got ignored.

You are advocating for an extra layer of signage/items to prevent people from doing something that they've bypassed multiple layers of signs and things trying prevent them from doing already. If someone's already ignored the sign (no matter what it said), jumped the fence and eluded security...would another sign really do anything, or just be ignored like everything else? If there was a "Danger! Do Not Use" sign at the top of the bobsled track..how is one to know that it means there is a metal gate across the track, and not just that using the track is dangerous, no matter what?

We just seem to have different definitions of what's "enough" for businesses to do. To me, a fence and a "keep out" sign are enough to indicate that for any number of reasons that I don't know about (up to and including the possibility of my death), I should keep out of the area fenced off. To you, they aren't.

[Nage Waza]

^ In the USA, it is basically called called Attractive Nuisance (regarding children only). Having worked in the mining industry for a long time, regardless of signs, you can't just leave a deadly hole in the earth and have a 'too bad attitude' for victims that fall in. You have to do everything reasonable to keep people out including trespassers. Signs are not enough, since someone may not see the sign. I figure based on work I have done in the past, COP must prevent people from going down a deadly track, especially if they have a history of people going down the slide at night.
I asked way back on page one for a lawyer to chime in, because I am unsure what the equivalent law is in Canada, if anything.

[Peanut]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I had no knowledge of the gate prior to reading this thread, but I clearly remember the Georgian luger who died during the Vancouver Olympics. If an experienced athlete -- wearing proper safety equipment, during the daytime, with emergency medical personnel on standby -- can be fatally injured on one of these tracks, even as a dumbass teenager I most definitely would have realized it's a potentially life-threatening activity to attempt this stunt.

3 things though.

- they were 11 years old when that happened.
- presumably a professional luge sled is going to reach much, much higher speeds than a person (or group of people) in street clothes sitting on wooden or plastic sleds
- nobody has ever flown out of the track at COP and from what I understand the incident in Vancouver was basically unheard of as well. When you see the professionals bail on TV they usually slide to a stop inside the track and seem to be mostly ok. The tracks are designed to keep the sliders inside.

Obviously it was a BAD decision. I just don't understand the lack of empathy. It was a tragic accident as a result of a really poor choice. But I don't think they were anticipating a chain attached to a heavy gate to be strung across the track at neck height nor for the track to abruptly end. I also don't think COP is at fault (the kids were trespassing, after all). I guess I can just understand how otherwise smart teenagers didn't factor "chain and switch in middle of the track" into their teenage-boy level risk assessment.

[blueski]

Originally Posted by Buster

My kids are a bit young to understand. But if/when they do ask about it, my characterization of the kids doing this won't be generous.

I want my kids to think these kids were being stupid and such activities are worth disparaging. I definitely don't want my kids to think this has something to do with bad luck or worse someone else's responsibility.

We had a talk with our eight and six year old about it tonight because they will probably talk about it at school. Points were made that decisions have consequences, peer pressure was discussed. Said it probably sounded pretty fun and scary and that if all your friends were going how hard it was for ones who weren't feeling good about it to say no.

Just said that there will be times ahead when they have to make decisions just like these kids made and that we hope they are brave enough to speak up and say no when it doesn't feel right. We then went over a lot of the dangerous things in our area that tempt kids.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

^ In the USA, it is basically called called Attractive Nuisance (regarding children only). Having worked in the mining industry for a long time, regardless of signs, you can't just leave a deadly hole in the earth and have a 'too bad attitude' for victims that fall in. You have to do everything reasonable to keep people out including trespassers. Signs are not enough, since someone may not see the sign. I figure based on work I have done in the past, COP must prevent people from going down a deadly track, especially if they have a history of people going down the slide at night.
I asked way back on page one for a lawyer to chime in, because I am unsure what the equivalent law is in Canada, if anything.

I'm not a lawyer, but the corresponding law in Canadian law is Allurement and specifically creating an allurement. I see peoples point here that COP has done everything they can to stop this, and that sounds sensible, but if the online rumours of this happening a number of times before are true then they might well have a liability issue here.

What happens in case like this is called 'contributory negligence'. What that means is that COP wouldn't likely be found totally responsible, but might bear some responsibility. Again, I'm no lawyer though.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by blueski

We had a talk with our eight and six year old about it tonight because they will probably talk about it at school. Points were made that decisions have consequences, peer pressure was discussed. Said it probably sounded pretty fun and scary and that if all your friends were going how hard it was for ones who weren't feeling good about it to say no.

Just said that there will be times ahead when they have to make decisions just like these kids made and that we hope they are brave enough to speak up and say no when it doesn't feel right. We then went over a lot of the dangerous things in our area that tempt kids.

That's parenting. Well done

[blueski]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

That's parenting. Well done

Well we hope it helps. From what I can tell, these poor kids parents were doing every thing they could too.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by blueski

Well we hope it helps. From what I can tell, these poor kids parents were doing every thing they could too.

Oh for sure. I just mean it's so hard not to be constant reactive parents:

"told you not to touch that!"

Etc. Good idea to have the graph ahead of time. Not as easy as it sounds, so well done.

[morgin]

For anyone parroting the "apparently this was a common thing with employees and people have done it before" line since CBC irresponsibly and lazily quoted a bunch of anonymous Reddit comments, the Reddit users went on to further agree it had apparently happened one time and involved sliding a picnic table, people ended up in hospital, and everyone was fired. Certainly not the common occurrence the lazy journalists reposting Reddit comments are trying to imply.

[GoJetsGo]

Originally Posted by Dan02

but did they make any choices that any of us would have thought could have been life threatening before this accident? No.

Seriously? Breaking into an Olympic facility in the middle of the night in an attempt to ride a toboggan down a bobsled / luge track in the dark doesn't sound like it could be life threatening to you?

As tragic as this was, that sounds extremely dangerous to me.

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by GoJetsGo

Seriously? Breaking into an Olympic facility in the middle of the night in an attempt to ride a toboggan down a bobsled / luge track in the dark doesn't sound like it could be life threatening to you? .

Was it a dangerous dumbass thing to do? for sure, but that doesn't really rise to the level of life threatening. the stupidest thing at least IMO would have been packing 8 people on to one sled(allegedly) and not wearing a bucket(assuming this) as smacking your head on the ice or your friends is probably the most serious risk.

If you exclude the unanticipated gate across the path of the track what do you find particularly life threatening?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by morgin

For anyone parroting the "apparently this was a common thing with employees and people have done it before" line since CBC irresponsibly and lazily quoted a bunch of anonymous Reddit comments, the Reddit users went on to further agree it had apparently happened one time and involved sliding a picnic table, people ended up in hospital, and everyone was fired. Certainly not the common occurrence the lazy journalists reposting Reddit comments are trying to imply.

I don't know if you're implying that I'm 'parroting' this line with my post above, but my point is slightly different. Sure, its great that the people there were fired for that action, but did COP take extra measures after that to prevent people from doing this? I understand that this might have only happened once before and was slightly different (picnic table or whatever instead of a sled), but it would indicate to me that COP knew that people had gotten on the track before, and therefore knew of the potential risk. Of course that's something for the lawyers to argue over and come to some resolution, but that's a pretty obvious angle.

[speede5]

Originally Posted by Dan02

If you exclude the unanticipated gate across the path of the track what do you find particularly life threatening?

Hmm, considering you have very little chance of slowing down, or stopping, the chances of even staying on the track all the way are probably quite low. I would imagine 100 km an hour would be an achievable speed and since a bonk on the noggin can be fatal on a ski hill at far lower speeds I'd think it's reasonable to see this endevour as life threatening.

[burn_this_city]

Some folks seem to think this is a frozen waterslide vs a challenging race course.

[OutOfTheCube]

Originally Posted by Dan02

Was it a dangerous dumbass thing to do? for sure, but that doesn't really rise to the level of life threatening. the stupidest thing at least IMO would have been packing 8 people on to one sled(allegedly) and not wearing a bucket(assuming this) as smacking your head on the ice or your friends is probably the most serious risk.

If you exclude the unanticipated gate across the path of the track what do you find particularly life threatening?

Cracking your head on ice whilst traveling 60+km/h and being out of control and unable to stop doesn't strike you as something that could kill you?

[habernac]

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

Cracking your head on ice whilst traveling 60+km/h and being out of control and unable to stop doesn't strike you as something that could kill you?

You don't remember being a teenager? I do. We were indestructible.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by blueski

We had a talk with our eight and six year old about it tonight because they will probably talk about it at school. Points were made that decisions have consequences, peer pressure was discussed. Said it probably sounded pretty fun and scary and that if all your friends were going how hard it was for ones who weren't feeling good about it to say no.

Just said that there will be times ahead when they have to make decisions just like these kids made and that we hope they are brave enough to speak up and say no when it doesn't feel right. We then went over a lot of the dangerous things in our area that tempt kids.

Thanks for the great example.

Peer pressure can be such a powerful force for teens, especially ones that do not feel good about themselves. It seems that there is always one in the group that is charismatic enough to convince others to do things they know they shouldn't do.

[OutOfTheCube]

Originally Posted by habernac

You don't remember being a teenager? I do. We were indestructible.

I honestly can't tell you one thing I remember doing that was extremely risky and reckless. I mean, it's not like I never had fun -- say for example, white water rafting. I did that as a teen, and it was fun. But we had proper equipment -- full size rafts, wet suits, life jackets, helmets, experienced leaders familiar with the river, etc. If a buddy would've suggested doing it by ourselves, at night, in an inner-tube, in nothing but my swimsuit (which would be the close comparable to this situation) there's no way I would've done it.

Maybe I was just boring, though.