More "great" skydiving publicity on cnn.com

[4201 0]

The most important thing is that she lived.

[OnYourBack 0]

"instead of bantering back and forth over who is to blame and how horrible the coverage is, share some amazing survival story, or maybe even some sad, tear-jerking fatality. "

We do share about almost every incident that gets publicly talked about in the Incident Forum. We do it so we can learn what exactly happened and to not make the same mistake. The purpose of this thread was to discuss how this coverage may be detrimental to the community.

[caico.katie 0]

Here's one (not skydiving related however):

My daughter's best friend's mother was in a car wreck several years ago due to swerving to avoid hitting a car. She lost control of her car. The car rolled several times before coming to a stop. The woman survived, but with suffered multiple injuries and lost her right hand. She is an artist, a right handed artist. Amazingly she is able to continue her art, and, she is also now teaching art at a local school. She had no health insurance to cover her medical bills, but the community rallied to her aid. Although there wasn't enough money raised to cover all of the bills, that which was raised was very helpful and greatly appreciated.

[NtheSeaOrSky 0]

Did she blame the vehicle?

Life is not fair and there are no guarantees...

[caico.katie 0]

Oops, I didn't realize that I had already posted that... please excuse the duplicate...

No, she didn't blame the car, although I do have another friend who was severely injured in a car wreck, in which the car was to blame -- sometimes things, just like people, fail at what they are suppose to do, that is just life. Life is one big risk, a risk that none of us voluntarily take on. We are conceived by no doing of our own. We are born, and struggle through life, hopefully having some good times along the way. But life is not safe, everything we do involves risks. A friend of mine told me about one of his friend who was a hire wire performer. He performed many years without a net. then, one night when he got up to go to the bathroom he fell down the steps in his house. He has now been in a comma for 1o years. Life is a risk, but hopefully we all find the risk to be worthwile (I know that unfortunately there are those out there who don't and they end up killing themselves -- that is very sad).

[caico.katie 0]

Damn, I didn't proof read that (when WILL I learn?)

that was suppose to say high wire performer, not hire wire.

[caico.katie 0]

Well, my son is starving so I have to get off of here and feed the poor "little" guy. I'll check back later to see whatever anyone has to say.

[NtheSeaOrSky 0]

My point was in your first example, someone was struck by tragedy, and did not blame the equipment (which was blatently not at fault).

I don't think people are as upset at Shayna for attempting to raise money, rather the misleading information she is giving. We have all seen our friends crunched up, and I have always seen skydivers rally around to help each other out, doing fundraisers for those without insurance, etc. There are many ways to go about acquiring money for bills rather than the route they are taking and many of us have done it successfully. But it is their choice to make, as the consequences will be theirs as well.

That being said, everyone who is affected by this certainly has their right to express their opinion and some of us will agree and some will disagree.

Oh, and for her sake I hope she is getting paid, because if she isn't I will hazard a guess it will make her even less 'popular' in the current community.

Life is not fair and there are no guarantees...

[4201 0]

I think it's an amazing story. I can see why all the media sources jumped all over it. She walked away from an accident that would have killed most people! Yea, she might of got the facts wrong. She only has 6 jumps. Yea, the media tells lies all day. So what if it gives a bad image to the sport? So what if someone does not want to jump because of what they viewed on cnn? More air space 4 me.

[bob.dino 0]

"Blame not the Shayna?"

If she was telling the unvarnished truth on TV, I don't think there'd be nearly as much hoo-haa. Unfortunately, she appears to be misrepresenting what happened. Which, when you do it repeatedly on national TV, blackens the name of skydiving and affects all who participate in it within the USA.

[MB38 0]

Even more unfortunate, there will not be a way to rectify this one in the public's eye. Even if CNN, AP, etc. all learned the facts about the incident, they wouldn't make them known. The public doesn't want to hear that the jumper was mistaken, took the wrong course of action and almost paid with her life... particularly after the equipment has already been made the enemy and the jumper has been made the victim.

An article that effectively states "The jumper was on inappropriate equipment, was trained by her boyfriend, cut away a good main and got unlucky on her reserve." will not fly.

The article that states "A blonde, bright-eyed 21-year-old girl was mutilated for life when her skydiving equipment failed her not once but twice, sending her face-first into the ground at 50mph. She and her unborn child looked death in the face and pulled through"... do I even need to say it?

If she told the unvarnished truth from day one, it would've never left the Incidents forum. Her spreading of misinformation -- whether she meant to or not -- is the cause of all of this.

It's come too far in the public's eye to be rectified, even if the truth were presented in the same matter and with the same voracity as the fabrication.

I really don't know what I'm talking about.

[hexadecimal 0]

Quote

Actually, to me it still sounds bad -- the statistic you quoted is down right SCARY!

I'm guessing by the contents of your posts thus far, that you don't skydive?

Statistics are only scary to people who resign themselves to becoming one.

[4201 0]

Remember the Lutz video? Classic example of misrepresentation. I am in no way comparing the two incidents. Just giving an example of misrepresentation.

[caico.katie 0]

Shayna didn't call the television station, the television station called her after they heard there was a video of the accident.

Her accident was covered in the paper of her hometown, Ash Grove, MO. One of her high school teachers sent the story to the paper. In little towns stuff like this is big news. The thing just snowballed from there.

[caico.katie 0]

I was referring to the murder statistics being scary, not the skydiving statistics. But really, more than being scary it is sad, sad that anyone could have so little respect for life that they would murder someone.

[caico.katie 0]

I like your little saying about ringing the bell and running off.

[caico.katie 0]

No, actually I think statistics are scary to anyone who loves anyone. I don't about dying, I worry about my kids dying. My own death does not frighten me, why should it?
I would be gone. The death of a loved one is what I fear.

[caico.katie 0]

I don't WORRY about dying. That is what I meant to say... anybody else getting tired of my typos? I sure am... or should i sey eye sur em.

[caico.katie 0]

Hey Hex, I just checked out your profile... so, what makes you a Nerd, I mean, that is what you called yourself. My personal opinion is that "nerds" will someday rule the world, if they want to. Do you wnat to?

[caico.katie 0]

Okay, I'm not even going to fix that one.

[caico.katie 0]

21 is a kid, believe me.
Average life expectancy for women being 74 to 78, she still has 53 to 57 years left. Would you consider a book almost read if only one third of the way through? Why, you might not have even reached the climactic point of the story yet. 21 is a kid. In fact, Rick, although 37, also displays the characteristics of a kid -- perhaps kid isn't based on just calendar age, but also mental, and emotional maturityl I know Shayn very well -- she is still a kid. She is growing up qickly, but when she made this jump she was very much still a kid.

[NelKel 0]

When you go back and re read you post you will notice an edit button on top of you post, you can use that to edit you post instead of writing a new on to fix it, there is also a spell check. Thank you for posting the details about her school teacher starting the deal and it snowballing, I don't believe the student in this case is purpoisly trying to give skydiving a black eye, but her BF should know better about the media, be an experienced skydiver, and I also believe they are both reading all of this somewhere and are probably scared to post cause they feel they might get flamed. I hope thing work out for her, and her baby. Her Instructor should have known better than to take her to another DZ after when the first refused to let them jump. It is a conflict of interest. My wife is a jumper and I am very causious about telling her what to do, because it is a conflict of interest. I'm not stating this because I have first hand info about their relationship, but sometimes lovers will purposly avoid certian instruction due to not wanting to embaris her or he may have been blinded by love and overlooked some things in her training. Again it is a conflict of interest, and if one is to do so, should be treated bussiness as usual and try hard not to let his judgment become cloudy.

My $.02 worth and I purposly leave the misspelling in for its originality

_________________________________________

Someone dies, someone says how stupid, someone says it was avoidable, someone says how to avoid it, someone calls them an idiot, someone proposes rule chan

[caico.katie 0]

Thank you so much for that piece of information. Man, some of you guys (gals) can be so nice and helpful. I really appreciate that. I think that in comparison to most of you I would be considered "old" and you know how ignorant some of us old people can be about some of this Internet stuff

[Zenister 0]

Quote

If she told the unvarnished truth from day one, it would've never left the Incidents forum. Her spreading of misinformation -- whether she meant to or not -- is the cause of all of this.

this bears repeating.. just incase any of the lurking observers missed....

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[caico.katie 0]

In Reply To
If she told the unvarnished truth from day one, it would've never left the Incidents forum. Her spreading of misinformation -- whether she meant to or not -- is the cause of all of this.

She wasn't saying anything the first day; she was in intensive care. If anyone was dispersing false information it had to be Rick.

Oh yes, and on the issue of money, according to my mother (Shayna's grandmother) Shayna's medical expenses thus far total aprx $450,000.00, and she still needs more surgeries -- I hope she does get some money from all of this, she needs it. She doesn't have health insurance, and even if she did, it probably wouldn't cover most of the expenses because skydiving IS a dangerous sport, therefore insurance companies often (if not always) will not pay for medical expenses incurred as a result of skydiving.