Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
Experience: I killed my classmate with a javelin on sports day (theguardian.com)
23 points by RHSeeger on June 14, 2019 | hide | past | favorite | 14 comments


The title makes it look like I'm the person in the story; I am not. I did find it really interesting, though. The writing itself it short and to the point, but still managed to create an emotional reaction in me.


This scenario is one of my nightmares. It makes me extremely anxious to think about it. I’m absent minded all the time, preoccupied with work even while driving so it is not far fetched. I try to focus but I fail I lot.

And somehow my nightmares always come true. Maybe I attract them with thinking about them. Sounds silly I know, but can’t help feeling that way.

I wonder if anyone else has this feeling


This is the fault of the school. Javelin, shotput, and discus are dangerous sports. My ex-wife had a similar experience seriously injuring someone at shotput. I hope safety is taken more seriously now.


I was head injured at shotput by a classmate. Every person who met me at the time thought I had a motorcycle accident, which I think it's way more common.


I find it surprising they had anyone stood in the direction javelins would be thrown.


They were distance markers, they're supposed to stand on the outside of the edge of the 'wedge' that the javelin area is marked in, but as the woman writes, as the javalin came down it veered to the right and sammy wasn't paying attention.

Clearly if anyone is to blame, it's either sammy herself for not paying attention while doing a job with an amount of danger, or the school for not making sure that the markers were staying aware of their surroundings.

But in the end it's an accident and these things happen - thankfully rarely.


Killing someone unintentionally is pretty common (it’s happened to most people, I suppose) but this story in particular is very well written.


heh?? most people have killed someone intentionally? That's a pretty bizarre/untrue statement.


I'm not sure that I'd say "most", but I bet the numbers are higher than most people would think. My Wife's best friend was hit by a car and killed while trying to cross a freeway on-ramp on foot. A good college friend was killed when she ran a red light as a result of being distracted by her phone. A personally know a couple of people who had car accidents while driving and killed either (a) passengers in their car or (b) bystanders. In the drinking & driving example, you can say that the person drinking & driving was responsible, but it's still considered "unintentional". For the first two examples, the "unintentional killers" are completely innocent of any-wrongdoing, but you could still assert that they "unintentional killed someone in a tragic accident". I'm sure most people who have had similar experiences don't talk about it.


This claim made me double take, but after thinking about it, yes, we all probably have, if only stochastically, by carbon emissions if nothing else


I think one of the most common deaths are caused by distracted drivers and implies the fault of the driver.


Air pollution from traffic cause 10x more deaths than all trafficdeaths combined in Sweden. In the same ballpark as deaths caused by depression. But it still is rather few deaths, so I'm not sure.


"Air pollution from traffic cause 10x more deaths than all trafficdeaths combined in Sweden"

How do you determine that number? Isn't it kind of like saying "straws placed on camels' backs cause X number of deaths"? How many broken backs does one straw equate to?


Well if that is a common accident for camels and if there's good relevant statistics about that then sure. You could calculate that for the population of straw bearing camels.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: