Dangerous -And Deadly- Sports...
From pro-athletes collapsing and never rising again (it has happened in NBA and NFL training camps, in track-and-field olympic-caliber training and elsewhere) to retired athletes attempting comebacks only to fall dead on the gym floor... Sports kill folks. They may make you healthy for a while - but the human machine has its limits that should not be stretched or too overtly tested.
And it is not just a risk that only the "all-pros" take...
A Rhode Island bodybuilder planning a comeback recently collapsed and was pronounced dead within minutes.
Against all odds and mathematical chances that it would ever occur, a professional skydiver saw her main and back-up parachutes malfunction, back-to-back - and she fell to her death.
This happened a mere 24 hours ago too...
A neophyte skydiver in Edmonton made statistical numbers mean even less as he was unfortunate to the extreme, dying in his very first jump, five years ago this week.
Makes one want to quit sports and just take it easy all heatwave long by the pool... hmm? But, of course, the water isn't much safer...
So many children drown each and every summer - parents that maybe should not have been parents share the blame with manufacturers of faulty pools there...
And then there's this swimmer -to veer back to sports per say- who died in a 130m fall last January 16... Training, again, for an event that this athlete will never be a part of, in the end...
We might as well stick to practicing team sports I think, quietly in our backyards - frisbee tossing, volleyball, soccer... Oh, wait - it was playing soccer that my father broke his leg once!
Oh well - there's always risks, no matter what we do.
Qué serà serà.
posted by Luminous (\ô/) Luciano™ @ 5:32 AM
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Bodybuilder collapses, dies
Sunday, July 23, 2006
A Rhode Island man who was planning to make a comeback in his favorite sport of bodybuilding collapsed and died while preparing for a local competition.
Anthony D'Arezzo, 44, of Johnston, R.I., was in Pittsburgh for the weekend's NPC Teen, Collegiate and Masters National Championships bodybuilding competition when he collapsed Friday afternoon in his hotel room at Sheraton Station Square.
An autopsy yesterday ruled that Mr. D'Arezzo died of cardiomyopathy, according to the Allegheny County medical examiner's office.
Mr. D'Arezzo had long battled heart disease, said friend Dave Palumbo.
According to a resume posted on Mr. D'Arezzo's Web site, he had not participated in a major bodybuilding event since 1997.
"He was trying a comeback," said Mr. Palumbo, who spoke with Mr. D'Arezzo earlier on Friday.
Mr. D'Arezzo was a fitness trainer in Providence, R.I. The competition was taking place at the Sheraton.
Skydiver dies in Colorado after main, reserve parachutes fail
Sunday July 23, 2006
LONGMONT, Colo. (AP) A professional skydiver died after her main and backup parachutes malfunctioned during a competition, sending her into an uncontrolled spin to the ground, officials said Sunday.
Mariann Kramer, 37, suffered multiple blunt force injuries and died Saturday, Boulder County Coroner Thomas Faure said.
She and at least 13 other competitors had jumped out of a plane at about 5,000 feet as part of a tournament in swooping, which involves complicated aerobatics as competitors glide near the ground at high speeds.
The Pro Swooping Tour event was held at the Mile-Hi Skydiving Center.
Charissa Muilenburg, the student coordinator at the center, said Kramer cut away her main chute after it failed and deployed a reserve chute, which also malfunctioned.
``For the reserve to fail as well, it's probably a million to one,'' Muilenburg said.
Kramer had previously jumped as many as 4,000 times, Muilenburg said.
Kramer, of McKinney, Texas, was flown to Denver Health Medical Center, where she underwent surgery to treat internal injuries.
Muilenburg said the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Parachute Association would investigate.
U.S. Parachute Association members reported making nearly 2.2 million jumps last year, when 27 deaths were reported, according to the group.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
In the interest of timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain occasional typographical errors.
Edmonton skydiver dies in first jump
Posted Sun Jul 29 2001
Beiseker, Alta. Witnesses looked on in horror as a skydiver plunged to his death in a parachuting accident Saturday night during his first-ever jump. "We saw the parachute spiralling down and then we hear a loud pop," said a 19-year-old witness, who also had just finished his first jump at the Skydive Ranch, which operates out of the Beiseker airport, about 50 kilometres northeast of Calgary.
"It's something you don't want to see on your first time out."
An air ambulance was called to the scene about 7:40 p.m. but declared the man dead on arrival.
RCMP Constable Wayne Greaves said there was no initial indication of equipment failure.
He also said it wasn't confirmed whether the man actually died from the impact, and that there will be an autopsy.
Jim Mercier, tandem instructor with the Skydive Ranch, said the man hit the ground hard at the end of a jump in which he opened his parachute with no problem.
But during the last part of his dive, he began a "hook turn," said Mr. Mercier, who witnessed the accident while acting as a radio controller on the ground.
"In the last 100 feet, he did a 500-degree turn," Mr. Mercier said. "A hook turn is when you pull down on the toggle and spin vigorously around."
But another witness who asked not to be identified said the man seemed to be spiralling close to a one-storey airport building on the ground.
"It looked like he was going to smoke that building," said the witness, adding that he looked like he was turning to try to avoid a collision.
In July, 1998, first-time skydiver Nadia Kanji, 18, died at Beiseker when she abandoned her main parachute and activated her reserve chute too late.
Last September, Jean-Guy Meilleur, 30, died after he attempted a hook-turn landing at a Calgary Parachute Club event near Drumheller, Alta.
The Skydive Ranch has adopted improved safety regulations since the high-profile death of a Calgary man at the site eight years ago.
Kerry Pringle, a 29-year-old accountant, plunged to his death on his first parachute jump in August, 1993.
A lengthy fatality inquiry into his death assigned no blame to what was then called the Calgary Skydive Centre for the tragedy.
But a series of recommendations were made by a Calgary provincial court judge including leaving a larger margin of safety when setting automatic activation devices on parachutes.
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