Three killed in NASA van plunge.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/08/mou....ap/index.html

"Three people died Wednesday when a commuter van from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory plummeted hundreds of feet off a mountain road in the Angeles National Forest, authorities said...."



Edit: Actually not sure where this should go now that I think about it, can a mod please move it to babbling if that is the more appropriate location?

Truly a sad event. From the picture, it looks like they were extreemly lucky to have lost only three.

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That is sad .

I'm sorry you are so badly affected by this accident. Did you know the dead personally? It is a tragedy for family members, but it's so difficult to be sympathetic about unknown casualties when 42,000 people a year die in road accidents in the US alone, and over one million in the world (See WHO, World report on road traffic injury prevention, 2004).

I hope you get over it soon.
John

Actually I went to the JPL site to see if the names had been released as there are posters here who work for JPL. The site has not published the names yet.

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From Update on Vanpool accident, currently at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

[Edit: These links may be more longer lasting: (1) Full Story, (2) Morning Statement, (3) Afternoon Statement.]

The names of the deceased are:

Dorothy Forks, an employee in JPL's Human Resources Department. (14 years)

Jane Galloway, a manager in JPL's Business Operations Office. (10 years)

And Kerri Lynn Agey, an administrator for Wackenhut Security, a contractor here at JPL.

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Cold. If you don't care, then you could have just said nothing. Takes much less effort.

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^

What CERDIP said.

Bad form.

:roll: :-s [-X

Why "bad form"?
I am in good company on this, with another JohnD:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Donne had the larger view. For the rest of us, it is easier to sympathise with and for those we know. If the original poster was family or friend of the dead - my sympathy, and I urge him or her to use their distress to further road safety. Great campaigners in many fields have come out of personal tragedy.

But why did they post about it here, or at all? Why did they bring the attention of an astronomy site to a road accident? Because it involved NASA staff? From my distance, America remained admirably stoic, even stiff lipped, about the Columbia disaster. Do not let yourselves go down the road that the UK followed over the death of one princess.

John

Why do you say you are in company with John Donne, when you appear to disagree with him?

Yes, people do die far too often in car accidents. But connections, even tenuous ones, can make certain events stand out more than others. The human need for a feeling of community I assume. This is an astronomy board after all and thus most of the posters are going to have somewhat of a feeling of connection with anybody else that does something space related. Therefore, the deaths of NASA employees would be felt here more because of that connection.

I can't believe that you really need this explained to you. This is, after all, an Astronomy/Science board. The 3 women who died were connected to the Astronomy/Science community. (As Captain Kidd has already pointed out.)

Calling what you posted "bad form" is putting it nicely.

Changing the subject from insensitivity......

Please tell me they had their seatbelts on. But it looks like at least one didn't.

I am still very sad that David Levy was killed in a car accident. Imagine spending a career studying and worrying about impacts from space and then failing to protect yourself from Earthly impacts.

And as for the rest of the folks killed in motor vehicle accidents, I am very sad for those people as well.

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You probably mean his partner, Eugene Shoemaker? Or did I miss something? I thought we were still on for the Galapagos.

Not in company with Donne?
If "each man's death diminishes me" (read "human's") how can thousands of other deaths not be significant? Unless the astronomy community is somehow special?

Any community is special, if the people are personally known to us - we know so much more about them, so we mourn for what others know not. If those people are unknown to us, what marks them as special from the other thousands, even if they do belong to a community that we claim to be part of?

John Donne rejected 'special' status for any community, be it astronomical, American, European (specificly -"Europe is the less"!). He meant, in my view, that we should no less concerned for those far away from us than we are those who are close. But the death of someone close to you will cause enormous emotional changes. The grieving process is well documented. Anyone who has lived more than childhood and some less than that will have gone through it. It must be gone through, or the living become trapped.

When the dead are no closer than a news report, is there justification for any grieving? When those deaths are part of a larger problem that besets society, would our interest in the news item be better directed towards that, rather than the details of a personal tragedy for others? To concentrate on those details, rather than the significance for us and the society we live in, trivialises it and lacks respect for the dead and their families.
John

Yes.
I believe no one here said they were not significant.
As Donne says, and I'm quoting you, "'each man's death diminishes me' (read 'human's') "

So, Donne would say "yes", and you apparently disagree.

Uh...excuse me, JohnD...with all respect that is due...

How dare you presume to tell me, or anyone else here, that our grieving is in anyway inappropriate.

Let it go...lets move on to something else.

Being thrown from a vehicle is as much a crapshoot as wearing the belt and riding out the crash. My grandmother and aunt were both in an accident on I-95 in North Carolina where my grandmother fell asleep at the wheel. My aunt was unbuckled sleeping on the back bench seat and was thrown out the open window when the car went into a nose down spin in a ditch. My grandmother and the other passenger in the front have had ongoing back and leg troubles as a result, my aunt had minor bruises and a mild concussion.

Unfortunately, in the end, its a matter of circumstance and pure luck that determines who survives and who dies. People climb out, with minor injuries, from twisted piles of metal and plastic, some people hit their heads just the right way from a fender bender and die on the spot.

Relevent to this case, what happened was tragic. Quoting statistics in a feeble attempt to marginalize the result does not mitigate one iota of pain from the outcome.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

I'm sorry for the accident your grandmother and aunt had, though I'm glad they were not hurt worse. But I strongly disagree with the implication of your statement, that seatbelts don't make a difference and its random luck. Yes, you can still die or be seriously hurt wearing a seatbelt. And yes, you can luck out sometimes without. But your odds are hugely improved by wearing a seatbelt. This is said as a former EMT who saw my share of faces meeting windshields and steering wheels.

Progressive insurance site with some stats at bottom
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website

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One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

I've long been frightened by roads like the one the van was on. I still ride on them when on vacation in the mountains, but they're still scary. This is why. ...And December seems a particularly sad time for an accident of this type to occur.

Regarding seatbelts, I'm a firm believer in their usefulness. However, I once had a car (a mid-1990s Pontiac Grand Am) whose seatbelts didn't seem very well-designed. They anchored to the door, not the frame of the car. I had visions of being in a roll-over accident and being flung out anyway. Also, recently, someone was driving stupidly (estimated around 100 mph in a 45 or 55 mph zone) in Oklahoma City, crossed the median, struck a larger vehicle, and the driver went through his seatbelt! Exactly what that means, I'm not sure, but it doesn't sound good. And no, he didn't survive.

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It might not mean what it sounds like. Sometimes in very high speed impacts, particularly if the person is just wearing a lap belt, they will slip under or over the belt. In such accidents I doubt whether they would have survived the accident anyway.

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All moderation in purple

No slight taken, and I did qualify it with a 'sometimes'. Vehicle crashes are unpredictable at best. I mean, an employer of mine refuses to wear them after a friend of his burned alive in a car when the seatbelt refused to release and trapped him.

In any event, I think we've hijacked the bejebus out of this thread enough. I'm personally a seatbelt wearer, so for me to defend the opposite is a bit out of line.

My point was you have have all the airbags, restraints and safety design put into a vehicle you want, the factors that determine whether or not you actually survive a crash in them is, in some cases, beyond any of those particular considerations.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

Doodler, with all due respect - I like you as much as I like anyone you only know through reading their posts on a BB -

Bull. See below.

Luck does enter into it. But it's only part of it, and you help make your own luck by using seatbelts.

Swift is right here. I am an active volunteer firefighter/EMT. I go to lots of wrecks. There are a very few types of accidents where you're better getting bounced off the inner surfaces and hurled through glass out of the vehicle. The vast majority of the time, a properly belted occupant is far more likely to survive a bad wreck, or avoid injury in a not-so-bad wreck. I've seen people who have climbed out of those "twisted piles of metal and plastic". Every one who I talked to had been wearing their seatbelts.

Ever seen a guy drive his car into a dead-stopped Lincoln Town Car (a big vehicle) at about 65 mph? I have. He was out of his car and walking around by the time I reached him. He had been wearing his seatbelt and his car had airbags. Modern vehicles are fantastically safe compared to a couple of decades ago, if you use the equipment.

I realize I've only spoken in general and anecdotal terms, but, Doodler, I think what you said is basically an urban legend. (Again, no disrespect intended - I think you're an asset to the board.) But I believe the stats mentioned by Swift are valid. A less scientific way of making the point is made in this excellent video. Warning! 6.6 MB download!

Some of us have managed to make our own luck such that we haven't had to depend upon the seatbelt.
Are you talking about the statement "I mean, an employer of mine refuses to wear them after a friend of his burned alive in a car when the seatbelt refused to release and trapped him."?

That may be an urban legend, but that doesn't mean it also didn't happen. I can attest that my brother has had a similar attitude, for the same reason.

Just out of curiosity, how does one survive a fatal crash?

Kind of like ol' Quint's assertion that, "I'll never put on a lifevest again," after surviving the Indianapolis, eh?

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Presumably they mean multi-person crashes where a subset of the passengers died.

This does remind me of two anecdotes in a recent issue of Reader's Digest. Both were about confusing headlines:

1) "Priest in fatal crash improves"
2) "Car and hearse collide, one dead in crash"

I think that's part of the reason I hear the highway patrol officers say things like, "I've never seen them have to unbuckle a seatbelt to get a dead crash victim out of a car."

I'm sure sometimes people die on the scene with their belts in use and still working, but it could be fairly rare.

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[quote="CERDIP"]Incase you hadn't heard Mr JohnD it is something called compassion it is a natural instinct just some people have more than others and some very little indeed...

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No urban legend, he was trapped by a seatbelt. One in a million occurance, but an actual event nonetheless.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.