Accident in Brazil (when the schools are....)

[waynepjh]

5 meter kite in 20-30mph! a small kite can generate a lot of pull! The kiter had some lessons and insisted on going out, against my recomendations! I felt like shit for letting him borrow my kite, I should of known better!



He was VERY lucky to only get a concussion. He was wearing a helmet, but it broke into two pieces!

[luijo]

I have been blessed for having my school in an area that is steel not so populate. I grabed my IKO certification close to my Island ( Puerto Rico ) in the Caribbean and my instructor was an excellent profesional. But it was a contradiction talking about safety and having more than 50 kiters around you, many of them not considering at all their fellow kiters and other begginers...

I'm think this is part of our human nature. We need to be humble when it comes to doing our kite trick and show off out there. As you all know this accidents will hapen in one second.

Safety should be # one consideration when out there. After all we are here to have fun and enjoy life in a healty way..

My congratulations to all of you who follow this line of considering all of the other people that share the space with us..

[fkb]

We need a good bloody accident just in time for each of Rick's articles for Rick to succeed.

No accidents, no Rick.

[peter64]

Good point, fkb. Let's all try to put RickI 'out of business'.

[jcbua]

I don't know Rick personally but it would seem to me he'd be the type to be happy to be "put out of business".

[mv]

There will always be a need for a Rick. The reason why is that deep down we are all idiots on some level, myself included. We easily get complacent and cocky and start making stupid mistakes.

Every single kitemare I have had has been because I did not do something correctly or misjudged the conditions and I am probably the most safety conscious kiter in my local area. I am the only kiter you will see wearing a helmet and an impact vest. The helmet is because I have seen first hand what hard objects can do to a kiters head and the impact vest is because I broke a rib last year kiting.

Just yesterday I had to go out and help rescue my instructor who taught me to kite almost 3 years ago. He got hit by winds that suddenly went from 16-20 to 30+ knots on a 15m kite and had to go to the safety. he was having a really bad time of it so I took my SUP off the car and paddled out to him to assist.

No matter how much we talk and discuss safety there will continue to be accidents and deaths in our sport. But maybe, just maybe, one person will read these posts and think twice before doing something stupid and that just may save their life. Is that not worth it? A few words on a forum for a persons life. Do all of the people that bad mouth Rick and his efforts think that little of others and place no value on life?

mv
http://www.kitesurfinfo.com

[Toby]

Rick would be the happiest person if he had nothing to report about, then his work wold have been successful and none of us would need to die...

It is a shame that some people don't see all the work he is putting into this. No one of you would do this. His goal is to prevent YOU from getting hurt.

[peter64]

There are a select few who oppose Rick's efforts, but most of us pay careful attention to what he has to say, because we know that there are valuable lessons to be learned from analyzing the situations in which kiters have been injured or killed. We can fairly easily chart the number and nature of kiting injuries that occur each year; but what is much harder to measure is how many have been PREVENTED, partly due to the efforts of Rick and others like him. If we all tried to learn everything we could from the mistakes others have made before us, and if we all tried to share these lessons with everybody we can, then maybe, just maybe....we could put RickI 'out of business'. And yes, I agree, nobody would be happier than Rick himself.

[tux]

..it seems a couple of hours ago another kite accident occourred in Prea' in front of the restaurant Azul do mar, this time looks like an expert kiter who was playing with extreme triks to close to the shore, I've been told he was covered with a lot of blood and that they were calling the helicopter, don't know exactly the dynamic, Probably he is Italian.
Hope to get some more infos soon.

[Toby]

I talked to someone from Prea, and the French rider will write a posting soon to explain what happened.

And yes, there was another accident, a rider hit his board with his face, that's why he had blood all over. But he is ok from what I heard.