I am asking because we all know that the media loves to sensationalize things. I am so glad she did not fall.

[www.cnn.com]

I am curious if others agree that she has a right to be mad at the CA parks or if she and here family need an appointment with child and family services?

Holy crap. As a parent (I don't care if mine are 18 and 20 years old), that's particularly difficult to watch.

on one hand, i think they deserve sympathy for their scare but on the other, they deserve to be snickered at.

you can't just make a judgment from that video. how far away from the car are they? if its just a few feet then it should definitely be improved. if its a few miles then it can be left alone.

too many people seem to think that nature should conform to the safety requirements of a school building. then they're surprised when it doesn't.

perhaps lining the kids up on the edge of a cliff for a pic wasn't the best idea but that doesn't mean they won't bask in the media for a bit.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2008 04:16PM by mattkime.

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loveshine

I am curious if others agree that she has a right to be mad at the CA parks or if she and here family need an appointment with child and family services?

i'm surprised a lawsuit against the park isn't in process. because the park was negligent in the sizing of the rail fence, the parents needed to see an accident waiting to happen but that accident shouldn't have been there in the first place.

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mattkime
too many people seem to think that nature should conform to the safety requirements of a school building. then they're surprised when it doesn't.
.

nature doesn't but if you put a fence around an area in a public park or highway viewing area, then i think it's reasonable to expect the sizing to fulfill safety requirements.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2008 04:21PM by graylocks.

Don't forget barbed wire to keep the animals from climbing over, too.

Yeah, it's always somebody else's fault. The parents didn't see the big gap in the fence? The parents didn't think the kids shouldn't be that close to the edge of a shear drop? Bad stuff happens to young children in the blink of an eye. I think it's up to the parents to assess the risks and dangers present when they visit an unfamiliar location. The parents should have been paying closer attention to their larva. This time they were lucky.

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- Jack D.




New tasteless sig coming soon!

So... people should be fenced into their houses, because the outside world isn't safe?
Sorry... don't think so.

If you're too stupid to know that getting close to the edge of a cliff isn't safe, you deserve to fall off a cliff. (Or in this case, if you don't know it's not safe for your kids, and you're too stupid to heed the fence, YOU need to be thrown off the cliff, and your kids given to someone with brains enough to pour urine out of footwear...)

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Paul F.
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A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca c. 5 BC - 65 AD
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Good is the enemy of Excellent. Talent is not necessary for Excellence.
Persistence is necessary for Excellence. And Persistence is a Decision.
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Eureka, CA

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Jack D.
Yeah, it's always somebody else's fault. The parents didn't see the big gap in the fence? The parents didn't think the kids shouldn't be that close to the edge of a shear drop? Bad stuff happens to young children in the blink of an eye. I think it's up to the parents to assess the risks and dangers present when they visit an unfamiliar location. The parents should have been paying closer attention to their larva. This time they were lucky.

i would agree with you if there were no fence at all. if you're not going to make a truly safe fence, then don't put one up. no fence - no presumption of a certain level of safety. a sign saying Warning - sharp drop-off ahead. Approach at your own risk. works for me.

There may actually be warning signs there; we just don't know from the video. Edit: the video also doesn't show how much of a "landing" is there before the steep drop (obviously there is something or the kid would have been gone).

While I think the park service should recognize that not everyone is an adult and put in a middle rail on that fence, there is no way to make the fence completely safe. For one thing, anyone could just go around the side of the fence.

There's no way to make the whole world safe and parents always need to watch out for their kids. (I think it should be obvious to a parent that a fence like that won't stop a child that small.)

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2008 05:00PM by AllGold.

Or maybe Paul can just go push stupid parents off of the Cliff. Get the job done.

Some seem to say, if they're going to have a fence, it has to meet whatever code requirements there would be for a fence in a backyard, or a rail on somebody's porch. I think that's absurd.

When you take your kids out, you keep them safe. It's your responsibility. That includes keeping them away from the edge of a cliff.

As the mother of a child who survived childhood, including a trip to that park and many others like it - WATCH WHAT YOUR KIDS ARE DOING!!!!

This kind of thing really frosts me, because my kid survived childhood because neither his father nor I would have allowed him to be that close to the fence at that age unless he was holding our hand. Also, from what I do remember about that park and others like it, the fences are designed primarily to keep people from getting too close to the edge of the embankment in case the ground is soft and gives way. It isn't a "viewing area" of the same type that hangs out over the Grand Canyon by any means, and there is level ground on the other. It's been quite a while since I've been there, so I don't remember how many warning signs there are or what they say, but I do know there are some.

Yeh, sure, let's get the lawyers involved, but let's also give the parents a little shake and remind them that they're still the primary guardians of their children. The entire world cannot be safety proofed because a few people don't act responsibly.

Nothing like a little sensationalism from the media...

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Aloha, Ken


“I have developed significant attachments to several members even though I wouldn't recognize them if I sat next to one on a park bench. I'm often tempted when in an airport to walk around, hollering "The Løpe", to see if anyone other than the Homeland Security people will acknowledge me. ” - The Løpe

Fences, any sort of fence, have to be really HUGE (bigger than the norm suggests) to do the job 100% of the time, whether it's keeping a dog in a yard, or kids away from a cliff. Such hugeness is rarely practical or desired - but parents should always be parents, and should be keeping an eye on their kids when they take them to such a natural site. Having an overly heavy fence kind of takes away from the natural view in this case. Might was well wall it off.

Kathy

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2008 05:38PM by MacGurl.

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Mr. Lahey: A lot of people, don’t know how to drink. They drink against the grain of the liquor. And when you drink against the grain of the liquor? You lose.

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loveshine
I am asking because we all know that the media loves to sensationalize things. I am so glad she did not fall.

[www.cnn.com]

I am curious if others agree that she has a right to be mad at the CA parks or if she and here family need an appointment with child and family services?

Why would she be mad at CA parks, given incident occurred in OR?

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It is what it is.

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mattkime
perhaps lining the kids up on the edge of a cliff for a pic wasn't the best idea but that doesn't mean they won't bask in the media for a bit.

Watching that clip this morning, I so felt that the little girl had been coached on what to say to the TV cameras. She put on quite a show, she did.

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It is what it is.

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N-OS X-tasy!
I so felt that the little girl had been coached on what to say to the TV cameras. She put on quite a show, she did.

Yup. I just hope they didn't tell her she almost died, because the parents are capable of doing more damage than the fall. The little girl probably wasn't scared until she began reacting to the frantic screams of her mother.

I saw something similar to this happen in my own family when I was little. One of my cousins was scarred for years until her sister and I finally sat her down and told her what really happened when she was 3! Yes, she did fall in the water and get her face wet; no she did not almost drown.

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AlphaDog
I saw something similar to this happen in my own family when I was little. One of my cousins was scarred for years until her sister and I finally sat her down and told her what really happened when she was 3! Yes, she did fall in the water and get her face wet; no she did not almost drown.

One day when I was five my family visited the L.A. Zoo. One of my younger sisters (2 yrs old at the time) was prone to throwing tantrums, which often included holding her breath; she decided to throw one while we were there.

I've never understood why, but my dad decided the best way to counter this was to dunk her head underwater. Which he did in the nearest body of water he could find, which was in a circular planterish enclosure - until he read the plaque indicating it was an alligator pen (zoos were quite different back in those days). Never saw him move so fast as when he was pulling her head out of that water.

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It is what it is.

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graylocks

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Jack D.
Yeah, it's always somebody else's fault. The parents didn't see the big gap in the fence? The parents didn't think the kids shouldn't be that close to the edge of a shear drop? Bad stuff happens to young children in the blink of an eye. I think it's up to the parents to assess the risks and dangers present when they visit an unfamiliar location. The parents should have been paying closer attention to their larva. This time they were lucky.

i would agree with you if there were no fence at all. if you're not going to make a truly safe fence, then don't put one up. no fence - no presumption of a certain level of safety. a sign saying Warning - sharp drop-off ahead. Approach at your own risk. works for me.

It's not the job of the State/Government to keep us from doing stupid things. Life is inherently not safe and people would be foolish if they expected someone else to assure their safety 100% of the time. Not to mention how boring things would be without discovery and adventure.

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- Jack D.




New tasteless sig coming soon!

Pose the kids two or three feet in front of the fence, not right up against it. You still get basically the same family snapshot or home movie. Potential disaster averted every time.

Even lacking a third rail or a sign warning of a potentially fatal plunge into the ocean, a fence at the edge of the cliff implies danger all by itself. Be careful! These parents were not using adequate care. They were very lucky of course and I'm very glad the little girl wasn't lost.

The state could spend millions of dollars adding a third rail to every fence at every scenic over look on the coast. Maybe that would keep a kid from going through. But some other kid (or adult) would still climb over and fall off the cliff and die, and the state would spend further millions defending itself from lawsuits and/or paying settlements.

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[picasaweb.google.com] [www.flickr.com]

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N-OS X-tasy!
I've never understood why, but my dad decided the best way to counter this was to dunk her head underwater. Which he did in the nearest body of water he could find, which was in a circular planterish enclosure - until he read the plaque indicating it was an alligator pen (zoos were quite different back in those days). Never saw him move so fast as when he was pulling her head out of that water.

I sure hope she's gotten a lot of mileage out of that through the years! "When I was two, my dad tried to feed me to the alligator at the zoo."

Did it cure her tantrums?

Oh, he probably thought the shock of the cold water would cause her to start breathing again, although I think tossing cold water on her would have been a bit safer. The problem with the method he was going to use is that she would have started breathing - and sucked in a bunch of water. Well, you know, this parenting stuff is sometimes a trial and error process.

I had in mind the very last shot in the series from this famous Grand Canyon photographer's leap.

[www.snopes.com]

Not as scary when you see the other angle. Just to ease my mind I was hoping there might be another angle posted somewhere of where the girl went through the fence ( yes in Oregon not CA- sorry).

not related but very interesting
Came across this Grand Canyon Sky Walk when I was searching for the above

[www.snopes.com]

Grab some chicken wire and a staple gun - problem fixed!

I thought there was a place in San Pedro where several people accidentally fell to their death (cliff near the ocean). It was a popular spot for teens to go at night. The city put up signs and railing and even built a wall and someone still managed to ignore all the signs and climb over the wall and fall and was killed. The person's parents sued the city because the signs weren't big enough or the wall tall enough, etc. Never anything about people taking responsibility for their own actions...

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N-OS X-tasy!
One day when I was five my family visited the L.A. Zoo. One of my younger sisters (2 yrs old at the time) was prone to throwing tantrums, which often included holding her breath; she decided to throw one while we were there. I've never understood why, but my dad decided the best way to counter this was to dunk her head underwater.

.

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MikeF
I thought there was a place in San Pedro where several people accidentally fell to their death (cliff near the ocean). It was a popular spot for teens to go at night. The city put up signs and railing and even built a wall and someone still managed to ignore all the signs and climb over the wall and fall and was killed. The person's parents sued the city because the signs weren't big enough or the wall tall enough, etc. Never anything about people taking responsibility for their own actions...

That's still happening, most recently earlier this year.

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It is what it is.

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Mike Johnson
Some seem to say, if they're going to have a fence, it has to meet whatever code requirements there would be for a fence in a backyard, or a rail on somebody's porch. I think that's absurd.

When you take your kids out, you keep them safe. It's your responsibility. That includes keeping them away from the edge of a cliff.

This is the purpose of a building code - everyone must conform to the building code regs otherwise... why have them?

(I'm not advocating a big fence in this case, but I don't understand the logic of random exemptions from the building code)

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mrbigstuff
This is the purpose of a building code - everyone must conform to the building code regs otherwise... why have them?

(I'm not advocating a big fence in this case, but I don't understand the logic of random exemptions from the building code)

Random exemptions? It's a park. Not a house, not a business. It's not a building. Should every hiking trail be paved, with every steep section carefully carved into perfectly consistent stairs, with hand rails on both sides? Should every campground be well lit with electrical outlets spaced no more than 12 feet apart? Should every river, creek, lake, pond, and ocean be surrounded by a child-proof fence?

Make it a problem or big enough issue and they'll just close the site. End of problem.

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Mike Johnson

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mrbigstuff
This is the purpose of a building code - everyone must conform to the building code regs otherwise... why have them?

(I'm not advocating a big fence in this case, but I don't understand the logic of random exemptions from the building code)

Random exemptions? It's a park. Not a house, not a business. It's not a building. Should every hiking trail be paved, with every steep section carefully carved into perfectly consistent stairs, with hand rails on both sides? Should every campground be well lit with electrical outlets spaced no more than 12 feet apart? Should every river, creek, lake, pond, and ocean be surrounded by a child-proof fence?

Um, sort of. If you can drive up to a location or walk up to a dangerous promontory and there is no sign or other notice warning of the inherent danger - and someone "allows" one access to that site under reasonable circumstances knowing that one could be injured or die - then the parks dept. could be at fault. At play is the definition of "dangerous."

You are correct that a park is not a building. That, however, does not preclude the government or another entity from making the area reasonably safe. Similar rules apply for playgrounds - they cannot be made or be allowed to be unreasonably unsafe. What is the definition of "reasonable." I don't know, that will be up to a court of law to decide. There is a legal term for being at one's peril, I don't recall it at the moment but it applies whenever one is in a place such as a park or a beach (overnight campgrounds are different).

If a half decent attorney argues that a "reasonable" accommodation was made for people to visit this promontory, signs were unclear, faded, or nonexistent, then I believe that the girl's family could win their case. There is an expectation that that fence was installed to prevent people from coming too close to the edge. Perhaps it was inadequately installed to do the job. Again, up to a court of law if it hears this case.

Given all that, most governments are indemnified against such civil suits.