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Littlebotweak t1_jd3ru48 wrote

> Two teens on spring break were killed Sunday night in a sledding accident in a closed area of Copper Mountain Ski Resort in central Colorado.

They took an unapproved device to an unapproved route and experienced the reality of what "the worst" that can happen was. Their poor parents. Snow sports are already so dangerous, this was really bone-headed.

Dear kids who will go on future excursions unchaperoned: you are your brother's keeper. If you see/hear friends about to go do something extremely dangerous and stupid, try to stop them. Peer pressure works both ways. I sure hope there weren't a pile of teenagers waiting on them at the bottom, or at the top for their turns.

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Get-stupid t1_jd3w7rm wrote

Now that I’m comfortably into adulthood, the immortality complex of youth is totally incomprehensible. I hate that so many learn the hard way.

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Sub_pup t1_jd415wf wrote

The amount of times I dodged death as a kid was too high. There were/are sure to be many who aren't as lucky or a tad bit less wise.

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RevolutionIsLive t1_jd49igb wrote

Sometimes I’ll have a drink with some old high school friends and we’ll reminisce about all the times we nearly died that our parents never heard about.

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xfd696969 t1_jd4c9ux wrote

It blows my mind how I was so stupid that I would get behind my car fucked up. I would never, ever do that now. And it was a normal thing for me/my friends back then. We didn't even think twice.

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Sub_pup t1_jd4k8je wrote

I use to get high and "hood surf". The one time I fell of at any real speed, my lucky ass landed in some thick bushes.

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[deleted] t1_jd4e00f wrote

I recall driving a moped home, 8 miles away down busy roads, while both—drunk on gas station cans of energy drink / alcohol, and high on more weed than I’d ever smoked in my life prior to that moment, at the ripe age of 14. I don’t remember the drive at all, except for a small insignificant moment where headlights from another car glimmered on the asphalt in front of me.

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357FireDragon357 t1_jd6meo8 wrote

SUMMER OF 1992 COCOA FLORIDA

I was 18 and I had an argument (with my then 33 year old stripper) girlfriend. I packed my beat up and rusty 1975 Chrysler Córdoba with furniture and hauled my drunk ass, speeding down U.S. #1 (jamming out to Guns N Roses with my Pioneer tape/radio )from Cocoa to Titusville. I was feeling freedom and great. So great that I waved to a cop that was sitting in the median.

About a mile down the road, I see blue lights flashing. I pulled over and he and he walks up to the side of my car and asks, "Do I know you?" I replied, 'No, why?'

His reply, "Because you waved to me back there. I thought I knew you." Nope! Just happy to be getting out of an abusive relationship.

Officer: "What's all that stuff in the back of your trunk?" Me: "I moved out"

Officer: "You been drinking?" Me: 'Yes sir'

Officer: "About how much?' Me: "About a fifth of Jack Daniels"

Officer: "Wow!" You seem pretty sober for drinking that much alcohol. How much further you gotta go and where you going?" Me: 'My parents house, which is about 3 more miles.'

Officer: "Ok, be safe and slow it down. I'm not going to arrest you because your speech is normal and honest and had the guts to be straight with me. Me: "Ok, thank you" (heart racing, thinking; damn I'm going to the slammer and no one's gonna bail me out.)

Similar incidents happened a few times in my late teens and early 20's. Thankfully never got locked up for it. I finally smartened up and realized it was frikken selfish of me and that I could hurt or kill someone.

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margot_in_space t1_jd583eu wrote

Glad you made it, but this is the biggest reason I hate driving lol

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2boredtocare t1_jd4jmz6 wrote

When I was 15, my two friends and I hopped a plane to visit the 4th friend who had recently moved to Arizona. I'm not telling tall tales, but we were good girls: honor roll, etc. Well, this 4th friend had become part of the "cool kids" clique in her new school, and the coolest thing for high schoolers to do was cross the border into Mexico where the drinking age was 16 at the time, and they barely checked ID. So off we went (this was way pre-9/11, border was open to Mexico and Canada back then) to a really fun little bar in Mexico that played great rock music. Things were going great until the music came to a screeching halt, the lights came on, and a bunch of armed men came in. I had never even seen a gun in person, and here's this group of men with guns pointed. They brusquely checked the bathrooms, talked to the manager, then left.

Now me, as a 15 year old girl WHOSE PARENTS DIDN'T EVEN KNOW I WAS IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY, where I was drinking, for the first time, underage (I was a month away from turning 16) was about shit my damn pants.

Apparently it was a fairly common thing for bars to be checked that way for drugs, etc, but holy shit. All I could think was I'd have to call my parents from a Mexican prison, to tell them I had been busted drinking (i had all of 2 beers).

My girls are 16 and 19 now, and I don't even know how I would react if I found out they did something so stupid. lol. I mean, I'm sure they have, I guess they were also just smart enough to not get caught.

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19GK50 t1_jd51t37 wrote

Damn, was it Nogales ??

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2boredtocare t1_jd7uq4t wrote

Yes! lol. My first foreign country experience. Good old Nogales.

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19GK50 t1_jd7v7fu wrote

LOL, , I was in the service, Ft. Huachuca was my last station before discharge when I left Nam.

WHAT a EYE OPENER !

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Brock_Hard_Canuck t1_jd6vwal wrote

I remember when my dad first told me the story of when some of his friends from his high school actually did die.

Near my city, there's a very fast flowing river, called the Willow River. An "average" river flows at about 5 km per hour. The Willow River flows at about 30 km per hour.

About 50 years ago, 7 teenagers wanted to take a canoe / kayak trip down the Willow River to celebrate their high school graduation.

Unfortunately, the waters of the river are too tough and impassable, so they all drowned.

You can see a photo of the river in the article here, and also a video of what the water flowing through the canyon looks like too.

The Willow River is very rough in spring (when the boys took their trip), because all the water melts from the ice and snow on the mountains, and greatly increases the flow downstream.

https://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/local-news/forty-years-after-river-tragedy-3699978

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VyBo6SVlog0

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wildcardlo t1_jd4gf1j wrote

My buddy’s and I used to get crazy excited to be able to surf during hurricanes in Florida when we were teenagers in the 2000s. I look back now and wonder how tf any of us are still alive

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Desperate_Honey272 t1_jd5gv6h wrote

Bro! That’s the only time we get really kill waves in Fl!!! Just Kidding but not kidding :/ Had some pretty nice tubes on the west coast as a kid, of course hurricane driven.

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homerteedo t1_jd7jhsg wrote

These stories make me feel so boring. As a teen the craziest thing I did was staying up until 2 AM reading Phantom of the Opera fan fiction.

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Justforthenuews t1_jd3xx7f wrote

Only if you look at it through the lens of our humanity. If you look at it dispassionately, it makes sense as a species. We produce many offspring and they go act, many times for our benefits, even though they may not think of it as such, other times idiotically. Nature is cool with the outcomes, plenty of humans make it to old age, who cares if some die, got to make sure things get done, especially by the young who have the capacity, if not necessarily the common sense or experience, to do whatever it is.

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Orisara t1_jd44s9m wrote

Yep.

I'm a rather good snowboarder. I stay on valid and legit tracks. No way I'm offroading.

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grain_delay t1_jd4fvrl wrote

You can very safely go off piste and even venture into the backcountry if you have the appropriate skills and preparation. Not really at all relevant to this

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asingleredcoat t1_jd6cjv3 wrote

I talked once to a veteran of the Balkan wars, he was 17. Same mentality they had as soldiers

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dashinny t1_jd68by9 wrote

This reminds me of when the statement “YOLO” became a thing lol

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BaronVonNumbaKruncha t1_jd4212j wrote

Three decades ago I spent every weekend of the winter and spring skiing out of bounds in the Colorado mountains every year. It baffles me how stupid I was and that I'm somehow still alive.

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Littlebotweak t1_jd43s7c wrote

Ya, exactly. I straight up fell off of roofs, drunk, without a scratch or bruise. Yea, plural. Not in the same night, but still.

The level of shit kids can get up to is beyond stratospheric. And, then you add booze or other inebriation and it’s that much worse.

Groups of kids (I’m using kids loosely at this point, for people under 25) can be a double edged sword too. I was at a music festival and saw a wook climbing a piece of art. Before I even processed the view ahead of me I said “it’s time for another good idea, bad idea” and then the guy fell from a height and I saw him break (probably shatter) his femur. It took the ambulance an awful long time to arrive.

My first thought once I processed was “where were his friends?” Because at the end of the day, the people you’re out partying with are the same ones you have to be able to rely on, and well, so much of the time…. What if someone said “hey Kyle, don’t”? Maybe they did, but I bet the odds are lower than they didn’t.

Statistically, something will happen to someone, but there’s no need to increase your own odds too much.

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Such_sights t1_jd6htjm wrote

Wow, we have almost identical music festival traumas. In my case I overheard people saying the guy fell out of a tree, but by the time I saw him he was unconscious on a stretcher, with his leg bent the wrong way at the knee. Definitely not the vibe I wanted to start out on that day…

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AndyPandyRu t1_jd403wj wrote

I have friends that frequent this area and they told me this spot that the 2 boys fell from is hundreds of feet. Onto ice.

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Matt3989 t1_jd45hst wrote

Knowing where that half pipe is, I doubt it was hundreds. But easily 50+.

5 stories or 20, it doesn't make a ton of difference.

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Double_Secret_ t1_jd4xi1o wrote

Also sounds like the ground was hard ice. Makes a huge difference what you are falling onto. And how. I’m guessing their tandem sled ride was a “dare us” gone tragically wrong.

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Iohet t1_jd4y9qw wrote

Sometimes I'm happy I was too poor growing up to be able to get into any shit like this. Playing on the railroad tracks and in abandoned industrial yards was dangerous enough

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-InfinitePotato- t1_jd65n82 wrote

Doing dumb stuff is a universal experience. Rich, poor, in the middle- everyone finds their own creative ways to feel death's breath on their neck.

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homerteedo t1_jd7joaj wrote

Eh, not universal. Some of us were boring.

I didn’t get drunk until after I turned 21 and was never once out beyond curfew or without my parents knowing where I was.

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Drug_fueled_sarcasm t1_jd6hn8a wrote

Too poor for sledding.

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Iohet t1_jd6np9z wrote

Too poor to travel a few states over for a mountain vacation, yes

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Drug_fueled_sarcasm t1_jd6nw8f wrote

I grew up sledding Illinois.

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Iohet t1_jd6p24p wrote

[shrug] They were sledding in Colorado

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Drug_fueled_sarcasm t1_jd6p6qk wrote

You can hurt yourself just fine sledding down a hill into a tree next to a corn field.

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Sneaky_Bones t1_jd7ys6t wrote

Ignoring nuance to make a forced point is annoying af. Going to a 2,601 ft mountain with runs as long as 1.7 miles, maintained to insure high speeds for snow sports is not the same as your average mid western sledding hill. Yes, you CAN hurt yourself doing damned near anything but some contexts afford greater opportunities obviously.

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Iohet t1_jd6sq5q wrote

We don't get snow on the hill next to a corn field here, so going sledding is a vacation, like something that someone of means does

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TriblialBrainDamblge t1_jd4i3s6 wrote

I used to spend all winter snowboarding when I was a teenager and I took a break for a few years while I was in the Navy because I wasn't stationed within 1000 miles of snow. I gave it a shot the winter after I left active duty and didn't even spend a whole day on the mountain. My skills had degraded to the point where I wasn't comfortable anymore. Shortly thereafter, I met a woman who had been a high level skier when she was a teenager and was expecting to go to the Olympics before she got in a serious accident that damaged the nerves in her neck. She had full function of her extremities, but she said she couldn't feel very much below her neck and a lot of what she did feel was that painful stinging you get when your leg falls asleep or something. Her story made me give up winter sports for good. She was one of the best and she had a life changing injury; what the hell am I doing up there? I haven't been in the slopes in almost 20 years now, and I can literally see the resort I used to go to most often from my bedroom window.

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IHateGroomers t1_jd5ldck wrote

Wait til you hear about all the professional drivers who have crashed and died. You'll never want to drive a car again! /s

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AnythingToAvoidWork t1_jd5vzon wrote

> Snow sports are already so dangerous, this was really bone-headed.

Everyone thinks they'll be fine until they aren't.

We had a highschool girl die at Gunstock in NH this year and Gunstock is a casual family / you can just straight-line most trails type mountain.

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NO_NOT_THE_WHIP t1_jd6dqij wrote

Always worth a shot but in my experience nobody ever listens to the one dissenting voice in the group.

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tretower424 t1_jdaf2py wrote

They also did this in the wee hours after midnight. Foolhardy.

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Dpshtzg1 t1_jd4klwa wrote

How are they gonna stop their friends when they're already filming for the Gram

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