Georgian Luger Killed: Is it ethical to broadcast the crash?

I agree, Cosmo.

Rogge said yesterday something about time for blame in the future but 'this isn't the time' (or something like that).

I guess "future" to the IOC is less than 24 hours so they can move on.

 

The standard operating procedure where I have worked is show with appropriate disclaimers and plenty of warning until the the news cycle is complete. If it's not news, it's gratuitous to show it.

In fact, I remember a post-9/11 e-mail going out saying, "Do not show people jumping from the towers anymore. It's no longer news that these people died this way."

That was pretty much the s.o.p. for 9/11 and Dale Earnhardt's death, IIRC.

Yes, it needs to be shown, though. It's news. And otherwise people aren't going to be moved enough to change anything.

 

Slight thread-jack.

Has anyone heard the rumor that his sled was tapered with by the Russian mafia? My friend posted this whole thing on his facebook:

"Nodar Kumaritashvili, Olympic luger from the "country" (i.e. soverign Republic) of Georgia, killed in a horrific training-run crash at Whistler. Evidence is mounting of sabotage by Russian mafia hit-men. Surveillance video has surfaced, clearly showing two shadowy characters tampering with Nodar's luge sled prior to his ill-fated run.
Post-crash inspection has revealed a partially severed brake line to the left slide rail of the sled. It would appear that the former (Communist) Soviet Union continues it's agressive persecution, on the world stage of the Olympics, of breakaway nation-state Georgia with this latest dispicable act. Swift action in response by the free world must be forthcoming! http://www.sosgeorgia.info/"

Any one hear of this yet?

 

Do the tinfoil hats come with the Olympic ring logo?

:

 

Hm. I hadn't heard about the luge's brake line being severed, but I did hear the sled's tail lights weren't working and that he had been having trouble with the Garmin before starting his run.

It could all be connected.

 

After looking at this a lot more, you're probably right. The easier solution would be to just extend the lip of the wall much higher.

 

http://www.nbcolympics.com/news-features/news/newsid=412058.html#luge+officials+tweak+track?__source=msnhomepage&GT1=39003

 

I've never seen those crashes. Could you actually see their bodies fly out of the car?

Maybe the (double) standard has something to do with how much is left to the imagination.

I don't think boxing re-broadcasts show fatal punches. And when people are paralyzed at events like the X Games or Dew Tour, they don't replay those either. (But they do if the athlete is OK... ie. Shaun White's crash on the halfpipe last month and Jake Brown in skateboarding)

All in all - unless there's something that can be learned from the video, it just doesn't make ethical sense to air it.

 

The worst was Jeff Krosnoff at Toronto. His car jumped off track and hit a telephone pole sideways. Pretty clear he was dead.

I can recall a corner worker getting killed at Vancouver when Willy T. Ribbs hit him. They showed that.

 

The Savage and Smiley crashes (both Indy), the cars disintegrated. Peterson burned to death in the Italian GP that teammate Mario Andretti won the World Driving Championship. Marcelo and Brayton were blunt force trauma (both Indy). There was a GP race in the 1970s where someone flew out of his car, clear across the track, in front of the camera, but I can't remember who at the moment. Racing was filled with that type of carnage through the 1970s.

 

Peterson didn't burn to death, in fact, his injuries at the track weren't life threatening. He died on the operating table due to an embolism in the hospital.

However, there were other F1 drivers who did burn to death. Roger Williamson and Riccardo Palletti jump immediately to mind. Niki Lauda was given last rites, but recovered and even won a world championship after his horrific burns.

The GP race you might be referring to was either the death of Gilles Villeneuve at Belgium '82 or it was the South African GP with Tom Pryce when a corner worker went on track on a hill where Pryce couldn't see him and Pryce hit him. The corner worker was killed instantly and Pryce was hit in the head by his fire extinguisher, killing Pryce instantly.

It was really ghoulish because it happened at the start of a long straight at Kyalami and since Pryce's blunt-force trauma was so sudden, his foot stayed on the gas pedal even though he was dead. His car made it all the way to the end of the turn where it collected another car before finally coming to a stop.

If you want some macabre reading, Wikipedia has all of the F1 fatalities listed. Thank God there's been none since Ayrton Senna in '94, though Felipe Massa came really close last year with that one-in-a-trillion blow to his head from a spring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_fatal_accidents

 

Greg Moore's fatal CART crash at the California Speedway in 1999 was pretty brutal as well.