death toll

[blyslv]

There is a great magazine entitled "Accidents in Mountaineering" available at your nearby well-stocked outdoors shop. Every year the editors present self-reported accidents and commentary on what could have been done differently. It's an amazing read, esp. if you want to go up into the mountains yourself.

We could do an BM version of such a thing...

I'm jonesing to get that mountaineering geekery thing going again--

"Accidents in North American Mountaineering". They have a website.

http://tinyurl.com/pcx5

Geek out bloodhounds!

It is an excellent read, but save it for after the big trip, and for god's sake wear a fecking helmet!

BM's version wouldn't be as gory. "After covering the pointy end of his femur with a clean cloth, X spent 18 hours on the ledge before dying of blood loss."

VERSUS

"Sparkly Queen took 3 hits of Mitsubishi and 4 grams of mushrooms. After forgetting to drink for 18 hours, he was treated with Champagne and otter pops and recovered nicely."

I know, I know I'm understating the seriousness of it all!

On to the Rumdoodle!

[precipitate]

> wasnt there a death at the 'dice' burn in 2001?

Technically, there was a severe self-inflicted burn after the dice burn in
2001. The guy died days or weeks later.

As I said before, lots of people have died as a result of the event. There
have been auto accidents, self-inflicted injuries, etc. I'm pretty sure
someone has died every year I've attended.

[BlueBirdPoof]

wasnt there a death at the 'dice' burn in 2001? i remember them talking about it in the jackrabbit speaks for 2002, encouraging people to not run accross the fires. you trip ... you fall.... end of the line.

anyone else remember this?

I don't know if this is the same one (I wasn't there), but I know a medic who worked a burn case in 2001 who later died in the hospital. It was nasty and he had fallen in some sort of fire.

[Chai Guy]

There was also the guy who decided he could fly and jumped off a several story tall scaffolding in 1999. He died after being airlifted to Reno.

[fishyroy]

yes it is sad to hear of deaths during burning man,
it is still my veiw that i would feel safer in BRC than
any other place or with any other population.
i think i may have met cathy and your description in
your orignal post serves as a beautiful requim.
thank you for sharing your story.
roy.

[TheJudge]

i discussed this with micheal micheal once, who was very proud of the fact that there had never actually been a death "at burningman, during the festival". his hair splitting involved both those terms, meaning that the motorcyclist who died in '96 died after the even was officially over (hours after, but still). other people died after having been medivaced out, or after the event was over from injuries sustained during the event, or on the roads into and out of the event.

made me wonder if the real "spirit of burning man" was just about spinning your justifications...

Sort of a Disney thing, but perhaps splitting hairs like that helps to keep the feds from closing the whole thing down.

[PJ]

...perhaps splitting hairs like that helps to keep the feds from closing the whole thing down.

The Feds won't shut down B.Man because of a comparative handful of deaths. 40K+ highway deaths a year doesn't make them mandate mass transit for everyone. Too many vested interests already have their hands in the B.Man collective pocket. I expect that a certain amount of rhetoric will be expended regarding vaguely-defined "safety" (ie, they're "for it") and some of that will go into writing.

[Ranger NaFun]

There was also the guy who decided he could fly and jumped off a several story tall scaffolding in 1999. He died after being airlifted to Reno.

I assume you're talking about the guy that jumped off of the tower at the Church of Mez. I camped with the Church of Mez in 2000 and 2001 ( and next door in 2002) and this is a common topic of converstaion. From what I've heard, the person in question survived the fall, though I hear he required a LOT of physical therapy.

NaFun

[rhymston]

I was there in '96 and hanging with the folks from Polkacide and I thought the unfortunate motorcycle accident happened during the festival (though perhaps he survived long enough to be extracted?).

On the drive out I wondered how it was possible that there weren't MANY collisions out on the playa. My memory is that we were many miles from the road, that there was no set "road" (we used a compass and dead-reconing to drive in) and that there was a mass of vehicles out there in a virtual white-out (and we weren't exactly all driving slow).

I hadn't been back since '03 and of the many changes I think the closeness to the hiway and the well-defined roads are one of the better ones...

Anyways, I think we were blessed with how few major accidents there were. Hell, in '96 we were still pretty well armed and wondering where the DriveBy Shooting Range had gotten off to.

Love,

Timmy

[BlueBirdPoof]

I was there in '96 and hanging with the folks from Polkacide and I thought the unfortunate motorcycle accident happened during the festival (though perhaps he survived long enough to be extracted?).

That's my understanding, although I'm only a two year burner and '96 is before my main source on medical injuries'es time too. I even vaguely remember newspaper reports, so I have some sort of smeared together medley of information about the event. In essence "Suffered Mortal Wounds at the Event; Died Later."

[Clint Kaster]

With all respect to Kathy's Lampton's tragic accident, the vast majority of stories involving injury on the playa seem to revolve around severe stupidity. A particularly egregious incident occurred on Monday night (post-event, dust-storm starting) at Amazing Larry's when an injured or sick bat landed on a particularly lame art car (a golf cart barely spackled in glitter). The folks associated with the car thought the bat was "cute" and proceeded to play with it and let it crawl on them. After it finally bit one of them, they threw the poor thing in a jar and freaked out. As one of the less-inhabiting-other-planets folks on the scene I wound up with this belligerent asshole demanding that I drive him to the Medtent. Looking back, I can't figure out why they didn't take their golf cart -- it never came up at the time -- but I informed him that he didn't have a medical problem but rather a stupidity problem and there was no way in hell I was going to drive off into a rising dust storm just to get him across the playa RIGHT NOW. The proprietor of the club was finally able to talk him down a bit and I think they were given a drink and booted out the door but I would vote to weed the gene pool right then and there.

On the other hand, a couple of kids who wandered into our camp with the old "took mushrooms as soon as possible after parking and now can't find the giant penis we used as a landmark" were given food and water and blankets and allowed to sleep it off. They were much better the next day but, then, were fairly humble about their problem when they ran into us. Of course we'll help you -- you're asking nicely!

Accidents happen and we should examine them to see if we can learn something but BRC is not the place to forestall others active stupidity.