Freak Helicopter Death Sparks Baffling Debate About Headphone Safety
by Tim Stevens, posted May 16th 2008 at 10:34AM
Reports of an aircraft crash usually result in news reports expressing doubts about travel by air, investigations into the cause of the crash, and, of course, questions regarding whether the crash could have been prevented. But what do you do if you're a news outlet and everyone else has already covered those obvious angles to the point of tedium? Easy: You find some completely unrelated detail of the story and try to blow it way out of proportion. That seems to be what Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper is up to, with a report indicating that the real problem for the man killed yesterday by a falling helicopter wasn't the spinning blades that decapitated him, but rather the MP3 player he was wearing.
The story states that the 23-year-old victim who was killed on the ground by the stricken copter, Isaiah Otieno, frequently listened to his music player while he was out and about. The implication is, naturally, that if he didn't have his player on he might have heard the copter and been able to dive out of the way.
To us, the idea that we shouldn't wear music players in public for fear of helicopters falling on our blissfully ignorant heads seems a bit preposterous -- just like last year's failed attempt to ban listening to music players in New York City while crossing the street. If you live in a city and can't safely cross the road with your ears plugged, then chances are you're going to have issues surviving on the streets anyway. And, if you have a helicopter falling in your general direction, then you have bigger things to worry about than the volume of your MP3 player. [Source: Globe and Mail]
