posted
It really is terrible that the woman is hurt, but on the other hand, if she wasn't hurt, it would have been kind of a funny prank.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
That really sucks Though, you'd think she'd be smart enough to look at the top of the flag pole and realize "Hey there's a shopping cart up there, maybe I should be careful about raising the flag today."
I mean, I'm sorry she got hurt. But if there's a shopping cart on top of a flag pole, trying to raise the flag is not the brightest thing to do.
The prank would have been amusing were she not hurt and was probably meant in good humor. Now the police are after the pranksters.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
I have to wonder what she was thinking. The article didn't mention anything like she didn't see it - said she didn't know how it was attached, I think. I submit, or at least would like to think, that I would not mess with a flag pole that had a shopping cart suspended from it in any way.
Definitely a dangerous prank and very unfortunate it had such results, though.
posted
If this flagpole is pretty high, she might not have even SEEN the cart. Just parked, walked over to the big pole, and did what she did every morning. Is that possible?
Posts: 1014 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Unlikely. Shopping carts are pretty darn big. It'd be very hard to miss it. And you'd probably notice that the rope was taut and hard to untie. I mean, the only way they coulda got it up there was to tie it to the rope and haul it up the same way you do a flag. They said that she didn't realize how heavy it was in the article, that suggests that she saw it up there and then tried to lower it by herself. If she did that the only way it coulda hit her was if she was standing under it. That's two very not bright decisions: lowering a heavy shopping cart by yourself, and standing under said shopping cart.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
"Perrine did not know how much the shopping cart weighed or how it was attached to the top of the pole."
Um, Perrine is a cop.
Someone in serious condition with head trauma might not be able to remember the accident and may not even be able to speak right now.
Posts: 1014 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
She was probably on automatic pilot since she did it every morning. maybe kinda sleepy. Some part of her brain probably said "is there something different about the rope today?" but she just automatically untied it anyway, lost in thought... maybe of the dream she was having not 30 minutes ago...
I can totally see how she didn't notice it.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Doh, sorry misread the article. Still. I dunno, this is kinda a pet peeve. When people get hurt by things that they could easily avoid by simply being a little more aware. Shopping cart up a flag pole really oughta be a harmless prank. When harmless pranks hurt people it frustrates me, cause it's usually just that the person who got hurt wasn't thinking, wasn't aware or wasn't being very smart.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
*Agreement* Harmless prank turned harmful by someone not paying attention.
I bet a million dollars that the person(s) that put that cart up there were not trying to hurt someone, just having a chuckle.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Shopping carts are heavy enough that it probably took an effort to get it up there. Obviously, it's going to come down with greater force, as gravity will be involved. I don't think you can say it oughta have been a harmless prank, and I don't think you should say that the person who got hurt by it was the one who wasn't thinking, aware, or being very smart. Thinking about the consequences is part of playing a prank, and whoever put it up there should have been thinking about how it was going to come down, and what the potential for harm was.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Stone_Wolf_, if there are absolutely no parts of your day that you do on autopilot, that's a valid comment. Why the heck would she expect there to be a shopping cart on top of the flagpole? And putting up the flag is probably something that the first person to arrive in the morning does. It's late October. It might have been too dark for the shopping cart to be obvious. I don't think you are being fair, trying to blame her for being a victim of this "harmless" prank.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I completely agree with ElJay. This was an inherently extremely dangerous prank. While it was probably not deliberately malicious, it was beyond negligent. Not to mention idiotic.
I hope the cops catch 'em.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I agree with ElJay and rivka. It is natural and common to be on autopilot for daily tasks, and I'd submit that someone who doesn't have that tendency kick in probably doesn't get a lot done on a regular basis, or is fooling him- or herself.
Has anyone who has driven for several years not had the experience of suddenly realized that he or she had gone on autopilot and was in the middle of driving to the wrong place (e.g., straight to home or work when instead had wanted to take a side trip first to the store)? It is common. And, for sure, on could say, "But you were driving! Surely you should have noticed that the buildings were the wrong buildings!" However, a different part of the brain kicks in and you just don't notice.
I'll go out on a limb and say I don't think it would be funny, to me, to see a shopping cart suspended on a flagpole. Unexpected, yes, and requiring a double-take, yes, but I require a lot more than "unexpected" out of my funny. (I am also dour, grim, and rather cranky [right now], especially given that I'm fighting a cold, but nonetheless.)
I would also be psychologically incapable of assessing that situation without thinking, "Good grief, that's stupid. It could fall and land on someone's head, and that could be fatal." Putting others in potentially life- or limb-threatening situations would have negated any funny for me, even if it had been there (for me) in the first place.
Dour, grim, and cranky. Also less likely than many to accidentally harm another person, which makes me happy.
quote:Originally posted by Alcon: When harmless pranks hurt people it frustrates me, cause it's usually just that the person who got hurt wasn't thinking, wasn't aware or wasn't being very smart.
See, I'd replace "the person who got hurt" with "the person who did the hurting," and then I'd totally agree with you.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
Regardless of the intent, the cart falling onto someone was an undoubtedly foreseeable consequence of their actions (either someone unties the rope, or the rope breaks, or the entire pole breaks).
That being the case, throw the book at them. This doesn't rank any differently than firing a gun in the air and the bullet hitting someone.
Posts: 1368 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: Has anyone who has driven for several years not had the experience of suddenly realized they had gone on autopilot and was in the middle of driving to the wrong place (e.g., straight to home or work when instead they wanted to take a side trip first to the store)?
YES! And I totally blame my car. It clearly has a tendency to drive places without checking with me first.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Let me see if I can make clearer exactly why I'm more annoyed with the injured person here than the prankster.
This for me falls under the cover of taking responsibility for your own actions. Living is inherently dangerous. Sure she coulda been on autopilot and not noticed the shopping cart. But for things like this, I'd rather place the onis on the injured than the harmless pranksters. It falls into the same vien for me as people spilling hot coffee in their laps and sueing the coffee companies. I know its different in that you wouldn't expect a shopping cart to be at the top of a flag pole, where you would expect coffee to be hot, but I would still expect people to at the very least take a glance. Take responsibility for your own safety, be aware, expect the unexpected. The tendancy in our culture is too much to say: "It's someone else's fault, punish them." where maybe we should be saying "I should have looked." or "I should have expected that."
This case is obviously very distantly one of those. But it still falls under that for me... cause I personally enjoy the absurd and unexpected. I love the fact that they got a shopping cart up a flag pole, that takes some doing! It annoys me that someone didn't take responsibility for themselves and look, and as a result got hurt. Sure they weren't expecting a shopping cart up a flag pole, or maybe were on autopilot. But if we go through all our days on autopilot and insist on nothing even remotely dangerous or unexpected... life'll get real boring real fast.
I suppose you could call that the immature prankster kid in me speaking. But I kinda hope that kid never goes away...
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
I'm not sure my brain would come to the conclusion "I should have expected that" when the situation involves a shopping cart and a flag pole. Underwear and flagpole, maybe.
I might agree with you in principle if there wasn't a single situation where the cart would be concealed, but there are several. It could have been before the sun came up. It could have been foggy (not sure where this happened, but that's common enough this time of year across plenty of the country).
If they'd been riding the cart, left it on the sidewalk, and she tripped over it, fell, and broke her neck I would agree that the fault lies at least partially with her. After all, the ground is a fairly standard place for a shopping cart to be. 20' - 30' in the air, however, is not.
Would it be funny if I hid a scorpion under your car door to scare you with? What if you wound up in the hospital from a reaction you had with it? How much of this would be your fault? Let's not even start with the snake pranks that would be possible in similar contexts...
Posts: 1368 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Not blaming the victim entirely. Just thinking we should admit that the victim is at least somewhat at fault. I'd prefer 50/50. Yes, given they wouldn't expect a shopping cart to be at the top of a pole. But they also weren't terribly aware if they didn't notice it there. If they were paying any attention at all to what they were doing then no one shoulda been hurt.
Let me put it this way: I'd prefer to be able to go through life assuming that people pay attention to their surroundings and what they are doing.
Perhaps a better analogy than the coffee analogy would be someone stepping in a hole in the side walk because they weren't watching where they were going, breaking their ankle and then suing the city for not keeping the sidewalk in repair. Sure you wouldn't expect a hole to be in the sidewalk. But if you weren't watching where you were stepping, whose fault is that?
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
So now an accidentally caused hole is the same as a deliberately placed projectile? Give me a break.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I said their not quite on the same level, but they bother me for the same reason: people not paying attention to their surroundings.
Also, is your sarcasm and score entirely necesary rivka? I'm honestly trying to explain why I tend more in sympathy toward the pranksters rather than the victim here.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Would it be funny if I hid a scorpion under your car door to scare you with? What if you wound up in the hospital from a reaction you had with it? How much of this would be your fault? Let's not even start with the snake pranks that would be possible in similar contexts...
Admittedly you've got me on those, cause snakes and scorpions scare the living daylights out of me. So I probably wouldn't find any prank involving those played on me terribly funny.
But I would submit those cases are a little different on this level: scorpions and snakes move. They're also somewhat better at hiding, and they're aggressive when you get near them. A shopping cart up a flag pole is fairly obvious. The cart is large, and flag poles aren't normally that tall. It's also a stationary object. It's not moving unless you move it somehow.
Plus, in response to dark: shopping areas are usually well lit by street lights 24/7. For fog: people don't normally put flags up when it's raining or foggy. Least ways around here they don't.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Would it be funny if I hid a scorpion under your car door to scare you with? What if you wound up in the hospital from a reaction you had with it? How much of this would be your fault? Let's not even start with the snake pranks that would be possible in similar contexts...
Admittedly you've got me on those, cause snakes and scorpions scare the living daylights out of me. So I probably wouldn't find any prank involving those played on me terribly funny.
But I would submit those cases are a little different on this level: scorpions and snakes move. They're also somewhat better at hiding, and they're aggressive when you get near them. A shopping cart up a flag pole is fairly obvious. The cart is large, and flag poles aren't normally that tall. It's also a stationary object. It's not moving unless you move it somehow.
Plus, in response to dark: shopping areas are usually well lit by street lights 24/7. For fog: people don't normally put flags up when it's raining or foggy. Least ways around here they don't.
Raining, no which is why I didn't use it. Autumn fog in places I've lived and visited usually burned off about 9 in the morning, so it was something of a daily nuisance, and didn't change a routine.
The problem with relying on mast lights to illuminate the top of a flag pole is they're often the same height, or nearly so (20, 25, or 30 feet; you can take my word on this if you like, or just take it as an educated guess.)
I agree the scorpion thing is a little trickier, but it is still a prank, still visible, and odds are I would have taped the thing down to be sure it didn't come after me as soon as I put it somewhere.
Lastly, about the sidewalk metaphor... Holes are something that can be reasonably expected on paved (and unpaved) surfaces. They happen, and I'd be hard press to keep count of all the holes and gaps I've seen / tripped over / fallen into in my years. A shopping cart up a flagpole, however, would be something entirely new. If someone had untied the rope on a flagpole, and the counterweight that some flagpoles use, fell onto them and cracked their skull open... That would be an expected event where the victim would assume the blame.
We're going to have to agree to disagree on this I think. A shopping cart was not a reasonably forseeable possibility, which to me places 99% of the blame on the prankster.
Posts: 1368 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Okay, then let me rephrase again. Perfect world:
I'd prefer no blame. Not prankster's fault, they intended no harm, and I think they could reasonably expect people to notice the shopping cart (that's the whole point of the prank after all) and not untie it and let it drop on their heads. On the other hand, the victim could reasonably expect no shopping cart on a flag pole. So call it an accident, no one's to blame. Issurance pays the health bill, the pranksters are let on their merry way and left alone.
Note the 'perfect world' in the preface.
I can agree to disagree though.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
In a perfect world, idiots wouldn't suspend a heavy object 30 feet above a place people stand.
And for the record, in Pasadena, as in most of SoCal, overcast mornings are exceedingly common this time of year.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Turns out I did misread the article. If the woman didn't see the cart for whatever reason, then my "I wonder what she was thinking" question is answered - probably "I wish I was still in bed." Unlike Alcon, I don't have an inner prankster and have no sympathy for the ones who hoisted the cart up there.
Posts: 2762 | Registered: Sep 1999
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posted
I'm still firmly on the blame falls with the pranksters side. Alcon, you're asking the victim to take responsibility for her actions while completely absolving the pranksters for taking responsibility for theirs. I would say there's no "maybe" about that being the immature prankster in you, you clearly identify with them more than her. And that's fine. But really, if part of what you like about the world is the unexpected and the absurd, and you're going out of your way to help others experiance that, it is then your responsibility to think through your prank and the possible ways it could hurt someone, and avoid the obviously stupid/dangerous ones. And any prank that involves putting an object more than a pound or two in the air had better also involve making sure it's not going to fall on someone's head. Your responsibility, period.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Added: I say this because I've done plenty of stupid things myself, and my response is usually "Well, I didn't think that would happen." And my dad's response is 'Obviously, or you wouldn't have done it. But you should have." Of course they intended it as a harmless prank. It wasn't an elaborate plot to break this poor woman's neck. But it was a stupid prank, that they didn't think through, and they need to take the consequences of their actions, which should probably be a malicious mischief charge. It's not going to ruin their lives, or affect them half as much as they affected her, and maybe next time they'll think about the consequences of their actions. There are plenty of opportunities for pranks out there that really are harmless.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
If the cart fell 30 feet, then it was going 29 miles per hour when it landed (assuming no air resistance).
Carts weigh what, 10 pounds or so?
The results weren't hard to predict. Even if only 1 person in a hundred wouldn't notice, the consequences are too severe to justify creating that amount of potential energy in that position.
I hope this person is found and convicted of reckless endangerment, and I hope she sues him back to the stone age.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: I'd prefer no blame. Not prankster's fault, they intended no harm, and I think they could reasonably expect people to notice the shopping cart (that's the whole point of the prank after all) and not untie it and let it drop on their heads.
I think is is flabbergasting that anyone could think the victim is partially to blame. Someone set up a dangerous situation and you think the person who gets hurt is even partially to blame?
The only way to get the the shopping cart down is to try an lower it--and that places you right in the path of a heavy object. Sure you could try to stand off to the side, but carts are big. I suppose she should of shot it down with a gun.
The pranksters did not think, set up a dangerous situation, and someone got seriously hurt. The blame stops with them. Being thoughtless (the pranksters) doesn't excuse crime--tho it does and should have less consequences then premeditated intent to harm.
I hope it plays out like Dagonee suggested.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
I guess I also misread the article, thought the lady who got hit with the cart had spotted it...
I think this is a real shame...a shame that what was intended as funny turned out so tragic...the persons who did this joke turned wrong are responsible and should pay her bills etc...I don't think they should serve serious time, as long as they have learned a lesson...that and most likely they are teenagers.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Christ people, it's very possible she didn't realize it. Hell, there are days I don't remember how I got to work. There are days I accidentally walk in to the side of my wife's car as I leave the house.
The woman was 62 years old! It could have been a Buick at the top of the flagpole and she might not see it.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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