We had a hammer hit a sprinter yesterday and he was hurt bad. Several broken bones, rushed into surgery, just luck that he's not paralyzed or dead. This isn't the first time a hammer has hit the track during practice either. Anyone else have to dodge hammers during practice?
Yikes! No, but have seen one get loose a skip across the track. Our hammer throwers would usually practice in an entirely different area, separate from the track area.
What college was this at?
I want a full investigation by Barry's DOJ.
What a terrible accident! There was an official killed after being hit by a shot not too long ago. I've seen discs get loose and land on the track. Also saw a jav hit a performance indicator.
Might be time to consider cutting throwing events from track
they need to do the throws in a very tall fenced in area. Hit the fence, foul. Throw over the fence, disqualified.
With today's tech there is no need for someone to spot the landings. Spot them using video.
I'm not going to sell the team out, but were a mid major, and pretty good compared with our peers. Why doesn't the ncaa mandate safety measures? It's ridiculous to have to avoid being maimed at practice.
It's all very good about safety and all but why don't the throwers take a few seconds to look if there's someone on the track (or field) that might get hit by a rogue throw before actually doing it?
Twice I had hammers land less than 10 yds away while doing reps!
Concerned Fan wrote:
Might be time to consider cutting throwing events from track
or switch to throwing functional things instead of mostly heavy weights.
Javelin, baseball, football, rock.
Almost hit by hammer once wrote:
It's all very good about safety and all but why don't the throwers take a few seconds to look if there's someone on the track (or field) that might get hit by a rogue throw before actually doing it?
Twice I had hammers land less than 10 yds away while doing reps!
The throwers are training as hard as the rest of us. They are focused on what they're doing and are focused on the landing area. They seem as surprised as the rest of us when one goes stray. It's the coach who needs to get it together. Bottom line we all deserve to have a safe place to practice. This is BS. I'd like to be able to tell my coach "I refuse to practice on the track while their throwing" but that's just not my mentality. I did talk with her about my concerns, but I can't bring myself to give an ultimatum. It's not how I was raised. :-(
Mandate international cage wrote:
Almost hit by hammer once wrote:It's all very good about safety and all but why don't the throwers take a few seconds to look if there's someone on the track (or field) that might get hit by a rogue throw before actually doing it?
Twice I had hammers land less than 10 yds away while doing reps!
The throwers are training as hard as the rest of us. They are focused on what they're doing and are focused on the landing area. They seem as surprised as the rest of us when one goes stray. It's the coach who needs to get it together. Bottom line we all deserve to have a safe place to practice. This is BS. I'd like to be able to tell my coach "I refuse to practice on the track while their throwing" but that's just not my mentality. I did talk with her about my concerns, but I can't bring myself to give an ultimatum. It's not how I was raised. :-(
Stop being a BIATCH and tell your coach what's good. It's for your own safety, i would get the whole distance team behind you.
Javelin > newspaper
Shot put > bag of sand
Hammer > tv set or computer
Almost hit by hammer once wrote:
It's all very good about safety and all but why don't the throwers take a few seconds to look if there's someone on the track (or field) that might get hit by a rogue throw before actually doing it?
Twice I had hammers land less than 10 yds away while doing reps!
Human error - they'll never be perfect. You need to factor into account throwers being distracted or forgetting or whatever, even if it's 0.1% of all throws. I don't think there should be ANY throws going on inside or even adjacent to the track. Put shot, disc, jav, and hammer somewhere AWAY from the track and put up HIGH safety netting. Plenty of facilities have 30' tall netting for stray pop flies at baseball fields to protect the parking lot, why can't you do the same for track?
I also agree that in this day and age there is no reason for people to be out in the throwing area trying to rush up to mark a landing ASAP. That's what happened at Cornell - official, very experienced, misjudged the trajectory of a shotput and it clobbered him in the head and killed him.
limp d liberal wrote:
I want a full investigation by Barry's DOJ.
Was the victim black and the perp white? If so, yes, please let the Dept. of Justice know. We take these hate crimes very seriously. If the admin or coach was also white, institutional racism may have been a factor.
It's not the throwers fault either. Even if it was clear when he was winding up, people are running around the track and unfortunate timing caused this.
Coaches need to take a more serious look at risk management. Have a separate throws practice with a closed track.
A javelin struck an official in the northeast:
Concerned Fan wrote:
It's not the throwers fault either. Even if it was clear when he was winding up, people are running around the track and unfortunate timing caused this.
IT'S A TRACK.
Of course people are running around it.
It's the coaches fault! I was there it wasn't even thrown from a cage.
Witnessed wrote:
It's the coaches fault! I was there it wasn't even thrown from a cage.
Unless the thrower is a participant in "special" Olympics, it's a shared coach/athlete responsibility at best.
It's college. He was not throwing in a cage (he knows that). He released...
The coach has a responsibility too, but don't take away all responsibility from the athlete.
Unless you are saying that it's the sprint coach's fault, who was having his sprinters train during the throwers' training block...
I was thinking how can a hammer land on the track? I can not believe the facility allows people to throw hammer without a cage.
The athlete and coach should have been arrested for their negligent behaviour that led to the sever injury of a member of the public! I could never imagine this happening at my local track. My local facility is state funded and they can afford a throwing cage!
If you went into the street and started swinging hammers around and randomly letting go, what do you think would happen?