RIP Jeremy Lusk

I'm not an X Games fan at all, but still tragic at age 24.


SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP)—Jeremy Lusk, an American freestyle motocross racer, died of head injuries two days after crashing while trying to land a backflip in competition. He was 24.

He had surgery in Calderon Hospital in San Jose to relieve swelling on his brain, but his condition worsened and he died Monday night, Metal Mulisha, his riding group, said Tuesday.

Lusk won a gold medal at the 2008 X Games. He was injured Saturday night when he failed to complete a full rotation while attempting a Hart Attack backflip and slammed headfirst into the dirt. Lusk crashed in almost identical fashion in the freestyle semifinals at the 2007 X Games but was not hurt.

He had a successful 2008 season, winning Freestyle gold at the X Games and silver in Best Trick when he landed the first double-grab Hart Attack backflip. He won a bronze helmet in Freestyle at the Moto X World Championships in his hometown of San Diego.

Lusk, who lived in Temecula, Calif., is survived by his wife, Lauren.

 

Heaven needed a guy that could almost do a backflip on a motorcycle?

 

A guy dies during competition and there's no outcry to ban the sport?

 

Just wait, I'm sure it's coming.

 

BAN THE SPORT!

 

You can't ban a sport that's not a sport.

 

This is a sport?
Please.
It's death on wheels.
With all due respects to the young man and others who risk arm, leg and everything in between, this is an envelope waiting to be opened with "You Die" written on the front.

 

I don't recall ever hearing of an X Games-related death before this.

Here's a nice list of death-defying feats from the X Games, as labeled by the LA Times last summer, which ironically (now) includes mention of Lusk: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/04/sports/sp-xgames4

But no deaths.

 

Don't think the accident happened at the X Games...

 

Don't think TSP said it happened at the X Games, but at a related event.
But it's a sad story. It was just a matter of time before something like this happened. These guys are just taking outrageous risks.
Coincidentally, I caught about 5 minutes of some show called Nitro Circus on MTV this afternoon and had to turn it off because the only two clips I caught showed guys missing the foam pit while practicing this stuff. One landed flat on his back and ended up in ICU. The other appeared to hit a forklift, and that's when I changed the channel. Worst part was the friends were making fun of them while filming them lying there fighting for their lives. Just sickening. One of my 10-year-old nephews is pretty into skateboarding, and it scares the hell out of me that this is stuff he probably enjoys watching.

 

Thought it did.

If it had, there would definitely be an outcry to abolish them.

 

Real Sports did a feature on Stephen Murray not too long ago:

On Friday 22 June 2007 at the Dew Action Sports Tour BMX Dirt Finals in Baltimore, Maryland, Stephen Murray took a catastrophic fall attempting a double back flip on the final jump in the dirt section. He received career ending injuries to his spinal cord and vertebrae and is paralyzed below the neck.