You are correct. I went back and his first point of argument was that there should be punitive damages and that Kelly and the whole staff should be fired over this. Eventually, he threw those out and went for the moral culpability angle.

Even if your assumptions are correct, we need more to properly assign blame to Kelly. How many football coaches has seen one of their players die from heat exhaustion over the years? The numbers of those type of deaths have dwindled over the years as we know more about such things and old-time thinking and practice regarding the subject (which were ingrained) have changed to match what we know.

As we look back at coaches that would make their kids practice in 100 degree heat with no water, we would think that is criminal. It may be now, but it was not then.

Just like with my A&M bonfire example, things that look so obvious to people outside looking in (and only looking in because something bad happened to draw their attention to it) may not be obvious to those in that environment constantly. I am quite sure that the coach, AD, players, staff, etc. all understand that football is very dangerous and people are going to get hurt. That is a huge focus ... however, can one not see how easy it would be to have that focus narrow over time so that when the group is thinking about health/safety and identifying dangers, they are thinking almost exclusively of the players? The stuff further out probably doesn't really enter their collective minds as potential dangers they should be looking out for.

Anyway, I'm not a psych, so I will stop trying to explain that. I do know that legally, we are allowed some real big mistakes and employees making those mistakes are usually the responsibility of the employer.

With the conditions you describe, I see a sitution like the bonfire ... there is calm with intermittent, severe wind gusts that should have made it obvious to all involved that the lift was being misused and there was a danger. It all seems very obvious to us right now, but assuming there was a person in place that had the authority to guage the situation and bring the kid down, that person either didn't recognize and appreiciate the danger posed by the win; or if (s)he did, there was no action or appeal to authority to fix the problem.

The fact Kelly sent him out to begin with is not the problem. If Kelly said something like "no matter what happens, that kid stays up there until practice is finished - I don't give a damn if that thing is rocking in the wind" that would be another story. If that proves to be the case, I would certainly agree that Kelly should be held responsible.

Michigan cameramen, putting in extra hours since 2008.

From the espn.com article:

This seems insane. They are working on the kid in the ambulance and he's not breathing, meanwhile one of the 2 or 3 people in the ambulance is calling the AD to alert him to this information during the presumably <10 minute ride to the hospital? wtf? Spin control within 15 minutes of the accident.

presumably someone from ND (one of his superiors, etc) was in the ambulance with him, and had previously told the AD the situation. I don't think its that crazy the AD told him to keep him updated with any info...perhaps so he could reach out to the kids family or something, or at least get the kids emergency contact info from the university database, etc

The problem with punitive damages here is this type of accident is so hot/cold: either the thing stays up and everybody goes home ok or it falls and somebody is seriously injured or killed.

If no accident ever happened in the past (and I assuming no because we would have certainly heard about it) punitive damages will be a difficult win.

The Tressel statement is spooky. And the AD phone call is weird as well. If we do not hear from Kelly soon (already?) I suspect he has some culpability in this.

If I am the family you bet I want everybody responsible (wholly or partly) to go down hard.

It's absolutely not up to the kid to step down. Because of the pressures of the job, if the kid steps down he feels like he's letting his VC down, he's letting Kelly down, and he's letting the program that he loves down.

He probably felt like it was a rollercoaster up there. Do rollercoasters scare the **** out of people? Absolutely. Do people think when they get on them that there's a reasonable chance they will die? No. He most likely assumed that even though it was swaying a bunch and really scary, that there was no actual risk of harm to him.

My sentiments as well. The kid may have thought "well, they know how risky this is, and this has happened before, so I'm probably ok."

The kid did not have advance weather reports that the staff should have IRT running outdoor practice. Tressel had them. This is really more of a statement that the program is incapable of running safe practices. The fact Kelly is a new coach probably does not help.

It's not kellys fault. as someone mentioned above, being a coach at a bigtime UNI like ND ( ok maybe not ND) but USC, bama, PSU and others you really are busy.

Kelly wants filmed practice and it's up to the assitants, GA or videocoord/manager to get it done. Kelly doesn't even care about what he is having for dinner or what grade his son is going to get on teh test he took that day. he is faar to busy to deal with minor unnecessary duties and leaves it up for the rest of the staff.

It's not that clear cut. Of course we do not have access to the conversations and actions (or non-actions) prior to this accident. All I am saying is that if you, as HC, cannot manage an incident of this magnitude either through delegation or direct intervention, then you got some serious explaining to do.

Basically, it is up to Kelly to explain to all of us what happened. For that I believe he is responsible. As far as blame is concerned, I can see scenarios where he either gets off fairly clean or is lit up pretty bad, and many in between.

Awesome post, TD. I bet you punched the air after you made it to celebrate your e-passive-aggressive attack.

Grunch.

This kid is a moron.


ETA: In brief skimming, I've seen no mention of personal responsibility to your own safety. Other people being amazingly incompetent does not eliminate your responsibility to not doing incredibly stupid stuff.

Meh, I don't really think that's fair.

I mean, you could be right, depending on how it went down.

But people have posted that the thing sways a lot during normal use. If it was swaying a decent amount, but no one said anything wrt safety hazards or whatever, I can see him having the perfectly reasonable inference that "it just seems dangerous, but actually isn't."

Plus, if, as they say, it wasn't consistently windy, that makes it harder for him to foresee something like this. If it's mostly calm and then a huge gust comes up and knocks his thing over, I don't see how we can blame that entirely on him.

Put another way, I can see how a reasonable non-moron could get himself killed filming practice in similar circumstances.

Do you think a reasonable person would bother reading the safety instructions on the heavy machinery they operate? Maybe I'm just a huge instructions nit.

I agree that it isn't entirely his fault. But ultimately his lack of care toward his own life put him in dangerous circumstances (Not that others incompetence should be ignored). He was aware of the weather (good), but not of the safety instructions of the machine (bad). I did notice some of the arguments toward the "letting people down" which just seems to echo a common theme of "spineless pussy" in modern society.

I'm pretty sure Indiana is a comparative negligence state that has a 51% rule.

Yeah I think he certainly could have been more cautious, and I probably would have been (especially because I'm scared of heights).

But I can see how a college-aged kid following orders from a superior (and yes, working for ND football could probably be intimidating, even to non-spineless-pussys) just went up on the lift assuming that it was safe.

You might be surprised to hear I was one of the few people to bring this up.

Was Kelly present at this practice?

Lol at thremp saying the kid who stayed up there even when he was scared ******** is a pussy.

Obviously discretion has a lot to do with the kid deciding it was safe/not safe for him to be up there. bdubbers indicated this already. And I think it's fairly safe to assume he entrusted staff to be aware of oncoming fronts, weather reports, etc, that would be used to make a more informed decision as to his personal safety 50' in the air.

Also, difficult for me to imagine some guy who is constantly scared of getting thrown off the thing and constantly interrupting practice with his demands to lower the lift, then go back up after 5 minutes of relative calm.

lol @ tuq getting hated on by 2 guys whose combined IQ doesn't reach 100.

i dont have to touch that one, .

You are correct. That definitely changes my analysis:

If this goes to trial, I suppose that ND would argue that instead of twittering to friends, the kid should have contacted a supervisor to discuss the situation and perhaps get him down. My gut feeling is that if the kid is found negligent for that, it would not come close to being 51%.

ND may still have some wiggle room, because the ultimate award will still be reduced by the amount of the kid's negligence (if any). ... and if ND hits a homerun by proving the kid was 51% at fault, or more, ND gets off the hook, entirely.

I guess my mistake was attributing the Illinois comparative negligence law nation wide.

And same for me regarding CA's law. I guess when they say in law school, "the first thing you ask is 'what law applies'" they mean it. When you practice mostly in one jurisdiction, its easy to fall into the trap of overlooking that important question.

Maybe plaintiff can call in Tressel as expert witness for "head coach".