Student Fatally Struck by Hammer at Wheaton College Track Meet

The Hammer should be retired. It shouldn't even be an event.

Exactly . wrote:

f*ck trump wrote:

Or rather drop all throwing events from T&F -- hammer, discus, shot put and javelin should all be done on a different field or a different time in a more controlled environment.

These stupid events should never be held around runners, nor any people at all.

You are both correct. These should never be held in the infield.

What a very sad story. I feel terrible for the student's family's unspeakable, senselss loss as well as the poor athlete whose throw cost someone their life.

I am personally petrified of the hammer. It is an instrument of war - as are all the throwing events - but it seems both more heavy duty as well as less predictable than the others.

My husband has witnessed one (or two?) middle distance runner(s) die as they cross the finish line on the track, perhaps due to a malignant heart condition. Also, beginner pole vaulters are extremely wiley and can hit a standard or land out of the pads - he thought one of his athletes crippled himself by landing out of the pad on the back of his neck, but it turned out okay.

Again, so terrible to lose a healthy college student. :-(

Life is dangerous. Accident's will never be completely eliminated in any human activity.

Don't want to blame the victim, but I would guess he has to be somewhat responsible for his lack of paying attention. Saw a young man today riding his bike with child in bike seat as he was talking on cellphone. Part of the distracted generation putting his life and his babies life at unnecessary risk.

f*ck trump wrote:

celery wrote:

If I was supreme emperor of the world, I would dictate that Tracks become 600 meter ovals (150m for each strait and curve). This way, there would be more room on the infield for the throw events, and maybe less of these types of accidents.

Or rather drop all throwing events from T&F -- hammer, discus, shot put and javelin should all be done on a different field or a different time in a more controlled environment.

NO!

There has to be better solutions that dropping the FIELD from Track & Field.

How about having football fork over some of the money they use AT HOME GAMES WHERE 115 GUYS STAY IN A HOTEL OVER NIGHT AND ALSO EAT MEALS THERE!!!

We can build better facilities which is the real problem.

I spoke with a throw coach today who witnessed the tragedy. The volunteer was a soccer player who shagging the hammers. The tragedy occured between the first and second flight during a warmup. The student was standing about 15 feet outside the sector. The throw was errant people yelled heads and it was too late. Horrific for everyone...

Former chitown wrote:

Does anyone know how he actually ended up getting hit? Like was he just not paying attention and it went out of bounds and hit him or was he walking in the sector and not paying attention and got hit? Very sad situation that could have easily been prevented.

I'm surprised this hasn't been brought up yet. Most D-III sports teams require their athletes to volunteer at other sporting events to save costs of hiring officials/workers at the meets. This happens at every school. I have always found it a little surprising that they have kids from the wrestling team, swimming team, football team, etc. (and this case soccer team) working an event they probably know nothing about and have never seen in action. This kid was volunteering on his own time, probably forced to do an event he knew absolutely nothing about, and he lost his life shagging practice hammers. Very sad.

disappointing foresight wrote:

I posted here saying that these injuries are 99.9% preventable, and people managing meets/facilities need to make sure that the right precautions are in place.

Why would that be deleted?

Yay, let's make the same mistakes over and over, and be sad when the same thing happens every year.

As an emergency doctor, I think it's disgraceful that the site deleted a post trying to bring some learning from this tragedy.

Of the post deleted this is the only one that resembles what you are saying,

"Let's focus less on "thoughts and prayers" (whatever that even means) and more on stopping these 100% preventable deaths from happening."

We deleted it because it sidetracked the discussion as people started talking about whether God exists and some thought it was insensitive. It's clear now that wasn't your intent.

Preventable death wrote:

Why can't people stand a safe distance from a hammer thrower? They should mark an arc to NCAA record or WR distance, have people stand behind it, nobody gets hurt or killed. Simple.

Good idea.

I also had a post delete it said that I honestly thought an illegal alien or radical Muslim attacked someone with a hammer.

I don't think that's offensive. I read about it everyday in the newspapers.

I guess all threads are cleaned up.

Republicans, Non-atheists, and Non-Democrats are always attacked on these threads, so what's the big deal?

It's usually 10 against 1

Preventable death wrote:

Why can't people stand a safe distance from a hammer thrower? They should mark an arc to NCAA record or WR distance, have people stand behind it, nobody gets hurt or killed. Simple.

The problem is almost always with the angle of the throw that causes it to go out of bounds. And the problem with "marking an arc" for the entire circumference from the throwing point is that it would trace into areas where people have to be, for practical purposes. In this instance, you can't reasonably ask a volunteer shagging the hammer to haul several hundred yards back and forth every time the implement has to be retrieved.

A key practical point for safety is the size and design of the hammer cage, which can limit where errant throws can travel. The NCAA's standards in this regard are not on par with the IAAF's.

Preventable death wrote:

Why can't people stand a safe distance from a hammer thrower? They should mark an arc to NCAA record or WR distance, have people stand behind it, nobody gets hurt or killed. Simple.

They do. This kid was a student volunteer, who forgot the instructions most likely. Or didn't appreciate their importance.

There is a reason they have a cage around the circle.

This is an important point. The mouth of the cage for IAAF is only 6 meters wide and 7 meters in front of the circle; for NCAA it is from 8 to 9 meters wide and only 6 meters in front of the circle.

Why not just tie a rope to the hammer? Seems a much simpler solution and you are guaranteed it won't go out of bounds unlike with the cage.

There's some pretty ignorant statements on here about the Hammer and throwing events in general. I've seen this happen before, a few years ago, so I'm familiar with instances like this. More often than not, it's a volunteer that has no real idea what's going on, just there to get community service hours for their team, or they know someone on the coaching staff/team, so they just want to help out. There's also instances in larger meets with "certified" help, but those are fewer and far between.

What you have to understand about the throwing events, is that Shot Put, Hammer, and Javelin are derived from weapons of war. Weapons meant to kill/seriously injure people. With that said, all it takes is having people running the events that understand what the implements are capable of. If the people helping are instructed on the real dangers and watched closely by the people running the events, it would help a lot. These days you can't trust that someone has common sense and knows the inherent dangers in these events. They must be told prior to the events.

Getting rid of these events is ridiculous, and probably written by people who have no understanding of anything off the track. While we're at it, why don't we get rid of the 5k and the 10k, since we already have XC. Do they really need to run those events on a track? They are long and boring, like NASCAR. Statistically, more people die running each year, than they do getting hit by throwing implements.

rvacoach wrote:

Thoughts and prayers for the young man and his family.

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/student-fatally-struck-by-hammer-at-wheaton-college-track-meet/

Let's focus less on "thoughts and prayers" (whatever that even means) and more on stopping these 100% preventable deaths from happening

wejo wrote:

disappointing foresight wrote:

I posted here saying that these injuries are 99.9% preventable, and people managing meets/facilities need to make sure that the right precautions are in place.

Why would that be deleted?

Yay, let's make the same mistakes over and over, and be sad when the same thing happens every year.

As an emergency doctor, I think it's disgraceful that the site deleted a post trying to bring some learning from this tragedy.

Of the post deleted this is the only one that resembles what you are saying,

"Let's focus less on "thoughts and prayers" (whatever that even means) and more on stopping these 100% preventable deaths from happening."

We deleted it because it sidetracked the discussion as people started talking about whether God exists and some thought it was insensitive. It's clear now that wasn't your intent.

I read it as having less to do with whether or not God exists and more to do with taking action that can save lives rather than burying our heads in the sand.

"Thoughts" was also used. That has nothing to do with God, but keeping this young man in our thoughts does nothing to protect the next victim from such a tragedy.

My Dad's one of those old guy field event judges who feels like officiating helps keep him young. Every meet when he's working throwing events, his minions for the day get the big lecture on safety around a throwing circle, even if he's worked with those minions before. He's seen people get (non-fatally) hit from a sector foul before and does his best to make sure no one really gets messed up on his watch.

I actually heard about the fatality first from him a few days ago. He's sadly now got another bit for his pre-event briefings.

My sympathy to the family of the deceased.

There's really no point in having these events anymore. The athletes can move to other strength events like World's Strongest man competitions or weight lifting.