escargot
Disciple of Marduk
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2001
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- 42,303
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This brings back another memory of school sports afternoon, when risk assessment, elf 'n safety and the like was none existent. Combine this with teachers who couldn't care less about the safety of pupils resulted in a recipe for disaster as excited pupils got hold of javelins discus etc. An over exuberant javelin thrower managed to pin my mate straight through the foot into the ground. The teacher nearly fainted the gormless wimp. The victim was fortunate in some respects in that only a very slightly longer throw would have killed him instantly.
This actually happened at a Wirral grammar school in 1983 -
(Safe Guardian article)
Experience: I killed my classmate with a javelin on sports day
I waited for the teachers to call me to throw. Ahead and to the right, I could see my classmates Sammy and Sarah, who had volunteered to mark ]the distances. I took my run-up, threw the javelin with all my might and watched it fly.
As it came down, it suddenly veered to the right, straight towards Sammy, who was distracted. Everyone could see what was going to happen. They screamed her name. In a split second, Sammy looked up and then ducked. I remember thinking: “Oh thank God, she’s OK.”
But the javelin hadn’t missed. It had hit Sammy just above her left eye. She stumbled forwards before collapsing. There was a lot of blood.
A terrible and very sad story.