Sad Stuff

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

... Yes seatbelts have saved lives in crashes, but I know of several that died because they WERE wearing their seatbelt.

It would be hugely unlikely that wearing a seat belt is the proximate cause of a fatality!
Yes people that wear seat belts do die, but; for the most part, the seat belt does not cause their death.
In fact you greatly increase your chances of surviving (/w less critical injuries) when you did wear a seat belt. Simply put, seat belts saves lives.

➥ U.S. Department of Transportation - NHTSA - The Facts To Buckle Up America - Safety Belts and Teens -2003 Report - DOT HS 809 578 - March 2003

➥ snopes.com: Seatbelt Risk

[bruce smith]

Something that has not been mentioned here is the design of the boat. Emma Goldman is (was) a long, skinny, shallow draft (4' I recall) boat. In the interview, the skipper admits he was going "too fast".
If the boat had not been sailing, fast ,the accident may have never happened. But then , a long, skinny shallow boat can get into trouble laying to.
Chest thumping? I'm a chest thumper.
I met , and swam around the boat years ago, and i thought, "not for me".

[PamlicoTraveler]

Note to self.... If I am involved in an accident on my sailboat and a family member dies, do not smile and give a thumbs up for the photographer when I am rescued. Also, do not write on facebook that I am drinking whiskey with the crew of the rescue ship.

I am sure she is horrified when she sees that picture on every news story about her father's death. I am certain she didn't mean for it to appear as it does.

[wolfenzee]

Yes horrible things can happen at sea......but I feel safe at sea and there are more and more places on land where I do not feel safe...realistically so, not just some sort of paranoia pulled out of the air.

[capn_billl]

I'll go ahead and bite the trolls on this one. Incident 1 a young woman in WA state was rear ended while stopped for road work while driving Ford Pinto. seat belt jammed. Car ignited due to well documented flaw in rear gas tank. She died of 3rd degree burns incurred while attempting to free herself from jammed seatbelt. Incident 2 An older woman in Houston,TX died in 2008 of drowning cause of death car left the roadway and submerged in drainage ditch in approx 8ft of water. She apparently lost conciousness and drowned while attempting to unfasten seatbelt.
I'm sure the most probable cause of death according to "statistics" is impact with front windshield when not wearing seatbelt, but not everyone driving drives their car directly into a stationary object at 40+MPH.

[aquarian]

Speaking of bad weather, has anyone heard from MarkJ?

Sorry, that was off topic.
As for life lines and seatbelts.
I don't want to be drug under a rolling boat by my lifeline - not fun.
I have actually known more people that died while wearing a seatbelt than without. 2 of those were a direct result of wearing the seatbelt. I do not trust any data presented by the US government any more. Yet I wear a seatbelt because my father was a paramedic/fireman. I asked him once if he noticed any correlation between car size and injuries/deaths. He told me that he had not, but that he had seen seatbelts save a lot of lives. This was before it became a legal issue.

[John A]

Just on the news. A high school baseball catcher wearing full protective gear was struck in the chest by a fastball and died instantly.

Sadly, terrible things continue to happen through no fault of the victum.