2 Visitors Fall From Taft Point

[rlown]

Agreed. Still sucks to learn about terminal velocity that way. RIP

[rightstar76]

Mrphil, you loooove being callous. Wipe that smirk off your face. Hahahaha!

[Jimr]

Last month I read a story that claimed close to 700 search and recovery missions in the U.S. were selfie inflicted in 2017.

[mrphil]

Mrphil, you loooove being callous. Wipe that smirk off your face. Hahahaha!

That's not very nice , but I am a big believer that stupid should hurt more than it does, more often. Pain is a good teacher that doesn't get heeded enough. I feel bad for them, but I feel worse for everyone else. Anybody that's ever been to Taft Pt knows that it's one hell of a long way down, but that it's also a very big slab that's hard to fall off unless you're seriously f'ing around and purposely tempting fate. I mean really, come on. One of them falling was an accident. Both of them falling was a risky photo op gone seriously wrong or a double suicide. It's not even like some kind of reaction where one person falls in the river 20 feet from the top of a waterfall and another instinctively jumps in without thinking. Jumping off a cliff to save someone has no instinctual basis at all.

I'll tell you though, in terms of callous and desensitized, is just about all these kids these days (Man, that makes me feel old to say!). I've got an 18 and a 21 year old, and they watch all these social media videos of some insanely catastrophic and brutal deaths, and all their friends know exactly which video they're talking about. You think of a form of horrible death shown in graphic detail, and there's a complete video of it somewhere.

[rightstar76]

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[Wandering Daisy]

Taft Point is more than just one rock slab. There are lots of locations that you surely CAN fall off. I actually camped on Taft Point years ago, off-season, before Glacier Point Road opens.

A fair number of those who fall and die in Yosemite are from other countries. I do not think a lot of young people from, for example, India, get a chance to experience wilderness, as we do here. Perhaps they never even have spent much time off a sidewalk. I think they may feel there is an implicit safety in the fact that they are in a "National Park". And then, seeing all the you-tube videos, they extrapolate that what those on you-tube are doing is fine. Unless you know for sure, how these two young people fell, I think speculating on how it happened, and particularly placing blame on them, is a bit unfair. The fact is that we all do a LOT of stupid things, and most of the time we luck out. I would hate to list all the stupid things I did and just by luck did not die.

But I agree that social media has really changed things. Everyone wants to be a "star" and seem to go to any length for that moment of glory. Young people have always felt invincible and taken lots of risks, but never so publicly. Additionally, there now are a lot of "death glorifying" and dystopic media out there aimed at teens. I have a friend who was so disturbed about what her very impressionable 13 year old was getting exposed to in junior high culture, that she and her husband quit their jobs, pulled the kid out of school, and spent 2 years traveling the country in a VW Van, home schooling him, having him read the classics instead of popular culture books.

[mrphil]

I do have to agree with you that it is somewhat unfairly speculative to make assumptions, Daisy, but the evidence reported so far seems to be painting a picture of two people that went around tempting fate more than once. Yes, there are lots of places you can fall from up there, but the exact spot is, for lack of a better way to describe it, a pretty good sized series of slabs. Maybe we'll know what happened, maybe not, but whatever it was that led to it, it was, according to the man's brother, a selfie gone terribly wrong. We've all seen it...when people are more focused on their phone screens than they are on the next step. Three now back to back in YNP fatalities alone. Let's just hope it doesn't become an epidemic, and that people learn their lessons from the mistakes of others.

Right up the trail at the fissures, I've straddled a couple of those so far that I was practically doing the splits. I was young, dumb and invincible... and nothing but lucky to not die.

[robow8]

I do not think a lot of young people from, for example, India, get a chance to experience wilderness, as we do here. Perhaps they never even have spent much time off a sidewalk.

I saw a statistic about worldwide selfie deaths, and the overwhelming majority of the deaths happened in India.

[AlmostThere]

The human brain is hardwired as it is to ensure survival, but currently we have so many ways to numb out, or go to the other extreme, that people who have become "adrenaline junkies" and people who have lost awareness of their feelings are going to end up becoming statistics when they enter environments where self awareness is important. This is why it takes a while for people to be aware of their hydration levels, their symptoms of things that get serious fast -- and why in my day job I have copies of a handout on how to feel your emotions again, for those who have intentionally ignored them away because their family or society frowns upon whatever it was they were feeling and struggling to control. Kids who are taught not to ever express anger or other feelings the parent can't tolerate are often seeking mental health services as middle aged or older adults, because they are told they need it because they lack empathy or have uncontrollable anger - the body still has emotions that they have tuned out of to the degree that they struggle with recognizing them and can't set them aside any more.

What's that got to do with this? A lot. Phones and apps and participating in the selfie culture are great ways to dissociate from upsetting negative emotions, or distract from, or find a way to fit in. We are good at finding purpose in life when we lack such, and it may seem strange to someone who has a real life with family, friends, job, etc that people are getting sucked into the artificial world of apps. But humans are always looking for connection in general and this becomes another way to do it - posting blogs about wild adventures gets people lots of attention, and daredevil stunts get you admiration or awe, and while I don't see that as anything I need or want to do, having emotionally needy clients who need validation and seek it out from sources I know are going to lead to disappointment is a familiar process to me. Kids retreat into video games for a reason.

This couple is yet another tragedy of social media - that big thorny complicated topic that gets discussed a lot in mental health circles for good reason. Being motivated by the "need" to publish such adventures rather than enjoying the experience for its own sake is unfortunately going to continue, just as alcoholism and drug use are continuing to be problems. And sometimes I also meet people who feel they have so little to lose that they continually flaunt safety precautions most recommend, do things that most people see as incredibly risky, just to feel alive.

I don't know exactly what this couple was thinking, but I have some guesses.

[rightstar76]

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