Althouse: "An Israeli newlywed couple on their honeymoon collided while zip-lining in Honduras, leaving the husband dead and the wife seriously injured..."

July 9, 2018

"An Israeli newlywed couple on their honeymoon collided while zip-lining in Honduras, leaving the husband dead and the wife seriously injured..."

"The wife was zip-lining amid the treetops in Roatán, the largest of Honduras’s Bay Islands, when she became stuck shortly before 1:30 p.m. Thursday... As she remained halfway down the cable, her husband came gliding down the zip line from behind, slamming into her.... The Honduran Institute of Tourism told Radio America it regretted the accident, saying it was due to 'poor operation' on behalf of the couple... 'Swoop above exotic plants, giant African Palms and beautiful landscapes,' reads the Royal Caribbean description of the zip line tour, which consists of 12 zip lines, double gliding parallel cables, 18 platforms and four hiking trails. The longest cable stretches for 1,950 feet and the highest reaches of 300 feet above the ground. 'You’ll receive your equipment and instructions before starting on the first three lines flying over trees and the breathtaking tropical scenery'..."

WaPo reports.

From the comments over there: "I don't have a bucket list, I have a f*ckit list. Zip-lining just made the list...." And: "I wonder if Vlad will want to do ziplining during his eHarmony summit."

33 comments:

rhhardin said...: In the Blood (2014) honeymoon zip line accident. Bride Gina Carano takes the responsible bad guys down.; 7/9/18, 7:16 AM
David Begley said...: Honduras is a tourist destination? Is this the same country people are fleeing and seeking asylum from?; 7/9/18, 7:17 AM
Michael K said...: Another one of those "Live life to the fullest" stories.; 7/9/18, 7:38 AM
Leland said...: Rostan is a great place to visit. The country does it best to keep the island peaceful compared to the mainland, because tourism is big business. However, in the last couple of years, it is becoming more dangerous. It is the only place I've had my cellphone outright hacked.; 7/9/18, 7:44 AM
Sebastian said...: Better to be a bit lower on life.; 7/9/18, 7:45 AM
Fernandinande said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/9/18, 7:51 AM
Fernandinande said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/9/18, 7:52 AM
Fernandinande said...: David Begley said...
Is this the same country people are fleeing and seeking asylum from?

According to the UN, Honduras is infested with Hondurans:

Hondurans drive Hondurans from their homes and land

As Hondurans prey on Hondurans, thousands of Hondurans are forced to leave their homes and land behind.

One day the Honduran hitman showed up at the house in Honduras and asked the Honduran sitting on the stoop for a glass of water, says Cecilia, a Honduran. “When he came back out with the water, they shot him dead as a Honduran.”

That was retribution for the Honduran boy’s Honduran mother allegedly talking to Honduran military police. The Honduran gang later sent the Honduran mother a Honduran message, says Cecilia, a Honduran: if she wanted to live, she must leave Honduras by the morning, Honduras time, and never come back to Honduras.; 7/9/18, 7:56 AM
Wince said...: Those tourists demonstrated their lack of Hondurance.; 7/9/18, 8:18 AM
MadisonMan said...: Yesterday, it's the girlfriend who slips and falls into the water rushing to a waterfall, and her boyfriend and his friend perish in a failed rescue. Today, a woman can't quite zipline correctly and her husband dies.

There is an obvious conclusion.; 7/9/18, 8:21 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Yesterday, it's the girlfriend who slips and falls into the water rushing to a waterfall, and her boyfriend and his friend perish in a failed rescue. Today, a woman can't quite zipline correctly and her husband dies."

Do we know who started to go toward the fall and inspired the rescue effort of the other 2?

I can imagine many scenarios.

But let's say it was the woman. The 2 men could hang back together and let her go, but then the 2 of them would have to live not just with their own knowledge but with knowing the other knows. Each would know the same thing about himself and the other and would know that the other knows.

But if one goes to save her and the other hangs back, he has 2 possible futures. One in which there is no death (or one death) but his 2 friends know (or one knows) he would let them die together and he is the coward and one in which only he lives and the 2 who died were able to think of him not helping as they plunged 100 feet. He alone would carry forward their thoughts, as he imagines them.

These possibilities are all so terrible that in the moment both men leap into a hopeless rescue effort and do what they must: throw away life.; 7/9/18, 8:34 AM
James K said...: Odd that the husband didn’t or couldn’t slow himself down. Maybe he was looking at he scenery. Also, normally on a zip line you never start until the person ahead of you has gotten to the end. And usually there are attendants who make sure of that, though maybe not at this one.; 7/9/18, 8:40 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: Oh, it's the tourists' fault? Must be a zip line for experts.; 7/9/18, 8:46 AM
James K said...: “These possibilities are all so terrible that in the moment both men leap into a hopeless rescue effort and do what they must: throw away life.”

A lot of people drown trying to rescue a drowning friend or family member, because the rescuee panics and overwhelms the rescuer. One of the things they teach lifeguards is self-defense. I once had to rescue a guy twice my size whose kayak had flipped. I told him to grab one end of the kayak, and I held the other, and I swam him back to shore. I wasn’t going to get within his reach. But at least with drowning rescues you have a few seconds to think about it. At the waterfall it was likely just instinct.; 7/9/18, 8:50 AM
n.n said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/9/18, 8:57 AM
n.n said...: Honduras... Is this the same country people are fleeing and seeking asylum from?

Yes. Although, with immigration reform, the situation is inscrutable. To paraphrase WaPo: democracy dies with journolistic reporting.

Oh, it's the tourists' fault? Must be a zip line for experts.

Apparently, it's a venue operated by amateurs or disinterested others.; 7/9/18, 9:01 AM
Tom T. said...: Is it that zip-lining moves really fast, or did they fall to the ground? I'm having trouble picturing how this collision would be deadly.; 7/9/18, 9:32 AM
Gahrie said...: These possibilities are all so terrible that in the moment both men leap into a hopeless rescue effort and do what they must: throw away life.

Toxic masculinity; 7/9/18, 9:47 AM
James K said...: They can move fast. The lines are J-shaped. You accelerate to the low point, then gravity slows you to the end. Doubt they fell to the ground.; 7/9/18, 9:49 AM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: Another possibility at the waterfall: they dropped into the lower pool as part of a stunt they were filming for YouTube.; 7/9/18, 10:33 AM
wwww said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/9/18, 11:22 AM
William said...: In later life I have come to the conclusion that the fear of death or bodily harm is not something to be overcome but rather a quality to be cultivated and encouraged. A coward dies many deaths,. That's so much better than just one death.; 7/9/18, 11:28 AM
traditionalguy said...: Cruises are good for seeing new places and learning new things at each Port. They are not good for dare devil, death defying show offs. You can do those anywhere.; 7/9/18, 11:59 AM
n.n said...: I wonder if Vlad will want to do ziplining during his eHarmony summit.

I think the Iraq-Syrian terrorist front and subsequent Kiev coup was a wake-up call. And everyone remembers Gaddafi's trial by sodomy and abortion. Still, with a Republican president, there may be a second chance to conserve good will.; 7/9/18, 12:06 PM
walter said...: Zipline accident..
"But Truuuumppp!"; 7/9/18, 12:24 PM
rcocean said...: This happened in Rostan, an island 40 miles off Honduras.

IOW, its not really Honduras. Its more like a Caribbean Island.

Just like Cancun isn't really Mexico.; 7/9/18, 12:51 PM
rcocean said...: Zip lining doesn't seem very dangerous, assuming you take standard precautions.

And there's always human error.

Remember the bungee jumper who was killed when she was given a 40 foot chord for a 35 foot jump?; 7/9/18, 12:54 PM
rcocean said...: "Is it that zip-lining moves really fast, or did they fall to the ground? I'm having trouble picturing how this collision would be deadly."

Supposedly you're fastened to the line and can't fall off. Maybe the impact was so great it killed her.

F = MV2.; 7/9/18, 12:56 PM
Fernandinande said...: rcocean said...
F = MV2.

What's that supposed to mean? You can't calculate a force ("F"?) directly from the velocity.

You sort-of gave the equation for kinetic energy:
E = M*(V^2)

Or maybe you sort-of gave the equation for momentum:
P = M*V(*2/2)

For this stuff, Force = dP/dT, or in simple form
F = M*A
A = acceleration = change in velocity, and that change isn't known.; 7/9/18, 1:22 PM
rhhardin said...: He wants FT=MV. It T is short, F is large.

A dog training throw chain works that way. You throw it at the inattentive dog who's just ignored a command, and it imparts all its momentum to the dog, giving a solid whump from nowhere.

But the links fly separately, in their loose connection, and so land separately, over a pretty long time interval. So the force is small, and doesn't harm the dog. But nevertheless he gets all the whump of the full momentum.

The same thing can be done with a juice can HALF filled with pebbles. The pebbles don't all stop at once, so it works the same way.; 7/9/18, 1:34 PM
Fernandinande said...: rhhardin said...
He wants FT=MV. It T is short, F is large.

That's F=M*A where A is approximated by V/T: V goes to zero in time T. The force is still unknown for people crashing into each other, or crashing into the ground, because the time it takes to stop is unknown.

Average Force for a car going 0 to 60 in 5 seconds = M*60mph/5 and have fun fixing the units, although F=slugs*miles/(hours*seconds) is a nice unit.; 7/9/18, 2:48 PM
Larry J said...: My wife and I went zip lining in the jungle canopy in Costa Rica several years ago. It was a lot of fun. The personnel running things were very professional and kept everyone safe. They had a set of procedures they followed religiously. That was a good thing, because once we started on the zip line course (over a dozen separate zip lines), there was no turning back. If someone wanted to quit, they would have to lower them from the trees to the ground and they'd have to make their way back through the jungle. No one quit and everyone had a great time.; 7/9/18, 2:58 PM
mikeski said...: I have been on this zipline course on Roatan. Or on an earlier version of it; they were still constructing the "1950 foot" segment when I was there several years ago, so the final segment was a bit shorter.

I have no idea how the wife stopped mid-line, unless the truck on her gear broke. (or whatever you call the part with the wheels in it.) It's an enclosed unit with concave wheels above and below, like a steel roller-coaster's wheels, so it can't hop off the cable. "Professional" gear might have brakes built into it, but this tourist stuff doesn't. They have 2 employees on the platform you're starting from, and 2 on the platform you're going to. The downstream guys slide a weighted block out on the line to slow you down at the end. Literally, all you have to do is hang there. All you can do is hang there.

The employees connect you to the cables and disconnect you from them at every station. They have walkie-talkies for the segments that are too long and overgrown to see from one end to the other (the cables sag, so it's not a straight visual line). The one at the top won't launch you until the one at the bottom says it's clear. Hopefully. I suppose hubby could have jumped early if he was already connected to the line, and didn't understand instructions. Even if they both spoke English, I can see a lot of disconnects between Honduran/Caribbean English and Israeli English. Caribbean-to-American English is tough.

The husband would not have been able to stop himself. You get some multi-layer leather gloves to wear. They're really just to orient yourself. You can moderate your speed a tiny bit by grabbing the cable hard, but you can't come to a dead stop just like that.

You dangle from the steel cable on a bunch of nylon-web straps, so this would have been like two parachuting people hitting each other. You're supposed to go feet-first so you can see what you're doing, but if you just dangle without keeping a guide hand on the cable, you spin around. The employees do tricks, hanging upside-down and such, when they ride down to the "landing" platforms ahead of you.

So hubby could have been taking a very fast header into an immobile object. Helmets are nice, but they don't stop you from breaking your neck when you do that.

Lots of bad coincidences happened here at once.; 7/9/18, 5:36 PM