30 year old woman missing in Argentina

[downunder]

I agree with not releasing the kite. However, we might suggest options till the end of time.

And teach/learn nothing. There is no authority on the web...

That's the only advice that suggests you don't take it!

It's also the only advice which negates the very purpose of this forum, but yet it is given as advice on this forum to be taken.

Zen??? Possibly a drunk post?

Correct, I do not take it. And I'm not afraid to say so. If someone live in a van and preach how good that is, I do not think most people will start living in a mobile house. Same with the safety. For me, it is not safe to live in a van.

~~~

Does anyone truly believe people learn about safety from reading the unsolicited advice's?

I think most of people are here just to kill some time. Except Toby who runs this business.

Some people would like to be taken seriously and somehow become an authority on the web. About safety or any other matter.

Good luck to them.

PabloQ is right on many things. Plus, maybe she wanted to disappear? What's wrong with that? Impossible? How would anyone know. Maybe she got a hart condition?

Again, how would anyone know? So, if no idea, what to discuss? For sure we are just killing some time. Which is good for the business

And please let me share this: in Aboriginal culture, it is not allowed to discuss about deceased people. It is strictly forbidden to name and show the picture of deceased person, or discuss how someone died.

How about that?! For sure I'm not Indigenous person but my belief is the same. There is absolutely nothing to learn when someone dies in an accident. About 40 000 years of culture somehow proves the point imo.

[PabloQ]

Partially disagree
Experience and learning from the facts avoid going back over the same steps. It is not bad to expose and try to learn about facts. Maybe if some speculations can be left over. But hey, it's part of learning.

[downunder]

^
There is a misconception of safety over obvious and extreme situations. Extreme situations do no relate to obvious in my books. Lets analyse this pic from Nov 2010:

zapetljane_noge.jpg (39.27 KiB) Viewed 1098 times

I am using it many times as an example. It happened to a person I know only by his achievements. Which are one of the biggest on the planet.

Now, no one can learn from this example. If someone think that it can, I would love to read how. There are so many extreme situations where one only lived by the chance.

Not knowledge. Not experience. But chance. Or call it whatever. Luck if you wish. Again, lets not mix obvious examples with extremes. This was an extreme situation, which probably I would not survive. And I'm fine with it. Sh.t happens.

It is also very simplistic to provide an answer like "do not release your kite". Or "kite should be released straight away". This kind of answers are given in the light of " being general after the battle".

No one can tell this but the rider himself. And this is why we can't learn anything from the fatal situations, simply we were not there, in his/her shoes.

Of course, MrKnowsEverything will question everything and everyone in a search for an answer. Like a child for a lolly...

[joriws]

Just wondering as she packed kite at water, I think she could have mouth blow it back to some shape. I am not meaning to riding pressure but at least a little over atmospheric pressure. So she would have gained more visibility and buoyancy aid? What do you think?

[ieism]

Besides the tragic loss for wich I am very sorry, there is an interesting discussion here.

I do not come from a kiting background, and have been amazed at a few things that I've seen and experienced this last year learning to kite. There are a lot of ideas about safety that to me do not make much sense to me in this sport, but I'm in no way experienced enough to talk about everything.

I have some experience in mountaineering, backcountry snowboarding and paragliding. I've been training for many years in safety in the mountains, and I train other people myself sometimes too. I have the qualifications, and experience to be as safe as I can in that environment, and am trained to assist in search and resque as well, so I know a little bit about safety in other sports.

To me the way safety is approached in kiting is very strange. You take a few lessons, they warn you about kiteloops explain self resque and thats about it. None of this is rehearsed or practiced in real life. at least on my beach. As soon as the lessons are over 99% of people dump the helmet and float vest and go on their way alone. To me that is wrong. We teach eveyone in the mountains to be self reliant, and to be able to make it out alive and if needed resque your buddies. This means you carry the gear needed and train, you're expected to be as good as your partners or better. If not we do not ride with you.

An avalanche is a real risk in the places we ride, and despite training and being at the highest level I've still lost friends over the years. I can live with that, they knew and took the risk willingly. I feel that in kiting people don't fully understand what happens if things do not go as they planned. To me the risk of drowning is not that different from being caught in an avalanche although the odds are probably a bit better. A few things will have to go wrong, a few wrong decisions and suddenly you're no longer in control. A lot of this, as in the mountains can be avoided by having a solid plan and preparing for the worst. It's even easier kiting, because you're normally very close to civilisation and medical assistance.

I was once a newby in the mountains, and a Swedish guy gave me a stern talking to because I was being reckless and stupid. I'm thankfull for that lesson, learned everything there was to be safe and am teaching people now. The goal of any mountaineering or snowboard trip is to come back alive, the rest is not as important to me anymore. That means you sometmes stay at home or adjust your plan. Probably the most important lesson is to mind the conditions and plan for them.

I'm new to kiting, and 3 times last year I did not go out despite already having my wetsuit on. Twice in high wind that did not suit my level of riding and experience and once in offshore when there was nobody around. I do ride offshore winds at other times, for instance when I know somebody is keeping an eye out for me and resque is only a wave of the arms away. I wish kiters were more ready to admit that there are dangers that can easily be avoided by being a bit smarter or using appropriate gear. It's not cool to risk your life and others, better to stay alive and live a long life with many sessions.

What do you think could be done to make yourself safer? Do you think experience and level of riding makes a difference? I'm interested to hear how people think about this in the kiting community.

[downunder]

^
I do not see any difference with kiting and surfing. Except surfers get eaten by sharks and drown more than kiters ever will. By bystander surfing might look safe, but in practice it is way different from places to places. So kiting in Argentina, or Chile has absolutely nothing to do with Australia.
I do not see similarity with paragliding, being a DHV2 pilot for years. Lost many PG buddies. And some were World class champions. Highly trained, decades of experience. Which somehow negates the safety training. Or maybe they would be dead way before with no training.

And lastly, humans walked on the mountains for a millennium. Kiting is here for like 20 years or so.

More people do not know how to swim and working on the boats as we type this. For some, we should not allow people who do not swim, to kite. That's crazy.

Kiting is the most gentle "extreme" sport one can do. To be fair, I was expecting a lot of nasty injuries or death by foiling. And none happened yet.

[RickI]

I am sure talking about accidents and fatalities has saved life over the years.
We can learn from any accident.

In this case people will be more aware of offshore winds and cold water. And maybe won’t pack their kite if things go wrong.
But, not everyone is reading forums, so there will always people be dying due to less knowledge.

[downunder]

Right.

We can also reverse this theory (because there is no proof, no one died and came back to tell the story), and say that talking about kiting actually ended life for many

On that note, we could also say that direct consequence of having more readers is a bigger number of fatalities.

No? Why not? The bigger sales of xyz (drugs, whatever), is not responsible for higher number of deaths? How is that possible? Im confused, sorry.

Hmm...We would like to minimise deaths and maximise survival numbers by doing something which is not natural. Like walking, or laying on a bed.

We first need to agree on what is acceptable number of deaths. If is zero, thats not possible.

If is 0.5%, than that might be ok. No idea tho.

Now, back to surfers, ALL of them know the risks. Or do we think they do not know? Really? Why so many deaths than?

To answer the training question, and why no extreme situations training, because there are just too many variables. Remember the PG? Well if something really bad happens,they do have a reserve chute. Plus airbags, plus helmets, plus xyz. And still die.

That same training would take 5k$ to apply for kiting. And we wonder why no new kids in this sport? Maybe because of too many cashed up middle aged people? Lets see, avg age on my local is about 48. Avg income is about AU 100 000$ per year. Avg because some are earning 300k+ and some 60k.

Not convinced? Come and see the gear. And cars. And dry suits. And wifes, dogs, kids, houses...

As wrote 2 years ago. The TT scene does not exist any more. Only the foil scene exist, with the avg of 8000-15000$+

While we are all about fatalies here, no one has any idea how to bring the TT numbers back.

So, good luck with that.

[Matteo V]

And please let me share this: in Aboriginal culture, it is not allowed to discuss about deceased people. It is strictly forbidden to name and show the picture of deceased person, or discuss how someone died.

How about that?! For sure I'm not Indigenous person but my belief is the same.

Downsey, you are a walking, talking, forum posting contradiction of epic proportions. How many posts did you make after your above statement???

There is absolutely nothing to learn when someone dies in an accident. About 40 000 years of culture somehow proves the point imo.

You can find literally anything, and any custom - from human sacrifice to pedophilia to slavery to genocide, within human history. And those customs existed for much longer than "logic and reasoning". But that DOES NOT make them right!

However, your interpretation of indigenous custom is 100% wrong. Not a single human being on this earth, save the completley compromised mentally, would see someone die of a snake bite and NOT TELL EVERYONE to avoid that snake. That's not just learning from others mistakes, it's why humans have been a successful species up to this point.

Society evolves and unfortunately occasionally "devolves". Evolution for the betterment of society is a product of learning from all mistakes, reguardless of the customs of that society.

The "de-evolution" that plagues society today, is mostly a product of acceptance of the mental insanity which praises the choice TO NOT WARN OTHERS of the dangers that will kill you and eventually lead to the downfall of society, if not addressed.

[edt]

The only reason airlines are safe today is that any time there is a fatality, they spends thousands of hours and millions of dollars figuring out why. If they figured can't learn nothing from an accident I would never fly.

I do agree though a lot of the time it's just speculation to make you feel better about yourself. Anytime there's an accident paragliding all the gliders swear up and down that one particular accident was 100% pilot error. The reason being it makes them feel safer for taking horrible risks every time they jump off a mountain.