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kowalski
Total Likes: 22 likes
| | | Re: Hearn rescue < Reply # 67 on 6/17/2008 7:54 PM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Industrial accident, Update, Victim succumbs to injuries, 55 Division Broadcast time: 15:47 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 55 Division 416-808-5500 On Sunday, June 15, 2008, 4 p.m., police received a call for an industrial accident at the Richard L. Hearn Thermal Generating Station at 440 Unwin Avenue. See previous release. It is reported that: - two men had entered the facility through a secure area for the purposes of taking artistic photographs of the interior of the building which is currently undergoing demolition, - a 26-year-old victim fell from an open area on the catwalk into an abandoned coal hopper located approximately three stories below, - the victim was rushed to hospital with serious injuries. The victim has succumbed to his injuries. Next-of-kin have been notified. The Ministry of Labour and the Toronto Police Service are continuing their investigations. Constable Tonyo Vella, Public Information, for Detective Kimberley O'Toole, 55 Division
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| micro
Gender: Male Total Likes: 7 likes
Slowly I turned
| | | Re: Hearn rescue < Reply # 69 on 6/17/2008 8:03 PM > | Reply with Quote
| | | A response to my email: --- Hello Andrew, and thanks for the reply. Here are the two police press releases on the incident, starting with the most recent, which mentions the man's death. I called the detective and she said he and his companion were both from Northern Ontario, but no names have been released. I understand your sensitivity around negative press, but it seems pretty clear from the press releases that these men were engaged in urban exploration. I've already spoken to one UE enthusiast who lamented the death but also pointed out that, in his opinion, a very small percentage (ie. about one per cent) of UE participants would fall into the category crudely defined as "idiots"; that is, people who take ill-advised risks and fail to conduct themselves safely. He placed this incident in that category, based on the fact that these guys climbed to a sixth-storey catwalk of a building that's under demolition - something he said most UE people would never do, given the obvious dangers. If you would like to weigh in, please feel free; if not, I understand. Here are the press releases: http://www.toronto...ses/pdfs/14307.pdfhttp://www.toronto...ses/pdfs/14299.pdf
[last edit 6/17/2008 8:04 PM by micro - edited 1 times]
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| liz
Location: New York City Total Likes: 3 likes
| | | | Re: Hearn rescue < Reply # 70 on 6/17/2008 8:12 PM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Posted by micro I don't care if he's legit. The point is, we don't even know if this person (or whoever he was with) was an urban explorer or just some guy out taking pictures. I know there's often a fine line between the two, but still. There was an incident in Australia recently where a couple of non-explorers died in a storm drain and the media had a field day by turning it into this big story about the Cave Clan draining community. The general public already has this conception that what we do is dangerous. We don't need that to be made stronger because of this particular incident.
| I understand what you're saying, but if he was someone entering the premises to take pictures of or from within a beautiful abandoned building, he was one of you, and he was, for fucking fuck's sake, "legit". I understand (possibly more than anyone on this entire website) the desire for spin control and trying to promote understanding from the media, but your suggestion that "the point is" that he might be different from us in some indistinct, elitist form of tribalism, is immaterial, disrespectful, and selfish. And please do me and the deceased the respect of not having an argument with me about this. My heart goes out to friends and family of this man, and the explorer community at large — of which I consider him a member.
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| Air
Location: Canada Total Likes: 65 likes
| | | Re: Hearn rescue < Reply # 71 on 6/17/2008 8:18 PM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Posted by micro A response to my email: --- Hello Andrew, and thanks for the reply. Here are the two police press releases on the incident, starting with the most recent, which mentions the man's death. I called the detective and she said he and his companion were both from Northern Ontario, but no names have been released. I understand your sensitivity around negative press, but it seems pretty clear from the press releases that these men were engaged in urban exploration. I've already spoken to one UE enthusiast who lamented the death but also pointed out that, in his opinion, a very small percentage (ie. about one per cent) of UE participants would fall into the category crudely defined as "idiots"; that is, people who take ill-advised risks and fail to conduct themselves safely. He placed this incident in that category, based on the fact that these guys climbed to a sixth-storey catwalk of a building that's under demolition - something he said most UE people would never do, given the obvious dangers. If you would like to weigh in, please feel free; if not, I understand. Here are the press releases: http://www.toronto...ses/pdfs/14307.pdf http://www.toronto...ses/pdfs/14299.pdf
| I hate to fan the fire here, but that statement I highlighted kind of bothers me. This is why people should not talk to the press. We don't know what happened... We have no idea if these two were careless, if they merely had an accident (being careful) , if they were intoxicated etc...and so forth. This is not for us to even discuss. The caveclan incident you mentioned was well handled, even if the press ripped off photos of the drain in question where two people died. Perhaps this is why something should be said to this guy from the globe because this article is going to handled very badly if they are jabbing in the dark and speaking to people who won't identify themselves (not you). It appears as if they want to run the story with a UE angle, as opposed to a wandering photographer angle and unless someone can confirm that it was someone this community, not just a photog who happened in there -- everyone who knows jack about this past-time will forever remember this story. And I'm not attempting to separate oranges from tangerines here, I just don't like the spin they are taking. This really, really sucks.
[last edit 6/17/2008 8:20 PM by Air - edited 1 times]
| "The extraordinary beauty of things that fail." - Heinrich von Kleist |
| kowalski
Total Likes: 22 likes
| | | Re: Hearn rescue < Reply # 73 on 6/17/2008 8:22 PM > | Reply with Quote
| | | In regards to the journalist's correspondence and the discussion around that, One thing I guess to point out is how childish and foolish the acronym "UE" sounds. If you're ever talking to someone from the media, please don't use the term, and try to disabuse them of any notions of using it. In general though, I guess this is more evidence that you should really think through what you're going to say before you say it. Assuming that the reporter isn't hack paraphrasing here and misrepresenting Axle's point, 1% of explorers? Really now? All the people who've been going to Hearn in the past few years have just gone up a stable set of structural stairs to the control room and haven't tried to unknowingly tempt fate by venturing out onto any of the upper levels? Really? Extending on what Liz said, I think if I were talking to this or any other journalist, I would really try to downplay and disabuse him of the notion that there is an urban exploration "community" in any official, institutional sense as he's treating it, as something to be sourced and pulse-checked. Lots of people explore this city in creative and sometimes unorthodox ways, and some subset of those people are drawn to buildings like Hearn. Many of those people don't post here or interact with any of us, except for the occasional random e-mail. What they're doing is no less (and sometimes quite a bit more) legitimate than what people on this forum do.
[last edit 6/17/2008 8:25 PM by kowalski - edited 1 times]
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