I'm writing in regards to 2 articles lately pertaining to the Louisville Extreme Park, specifically "Helmet-rule amendment targets juveniles' safety" and "Scuffle at Extreme Park leads to arrest Police: Big crowd yelled at crew treating injury", I know there have been other articles about the park and some serious injuries that have occured. I'm wanting to let your reporters know the "root cause" of the accidents that lead to these articles, and it's not whether or not a helmet is on. If you check with skaters and bikers that witness how these accidents occur you will find out that its usually kids on bicycles falling into the 11' bowl right by where the street course has a roll out. The deck is only about 10' wide at that point and if a kid doesn't know about it or is coming out of the street course to fast, their is not enough time to stop, usually the kid slows down and about stops then the front wheel has gone over the edge, think about it, the bike is gonna flip over and send that kid straight down to his head 11' down, plus however tall he is. Hey, why not block the roll out of the street course by extending the bowled wall to the wedge, or put up a fence around that side of the big bowl. Shouldn't we look for the root cause instead of just trying to pad up for the 11' drop into the "pit of doom". As for the Cops maglight beat down of the Skateboarder, there were 3 people video taping at the time of the incident and they should be able to show how slow the EMT workers were walking as well as what the facts were in regards to the maglight beating.
More power to them if they instate the Helmet rule, I hope they do more by fixing the problem of kids accidently falling into the bowl and leave the EMT's work for the dude's that gnarl themselves trying to be Extreme. By the way, other than the Louisville Extreme park, I thing the word Extreme is extremely played out.
I hope I've been helpful and I hope my friends also send you email.
Sincerely
Daniel K. Rea
www.fullpipe.com
Here is some background rant on the subject that was the impetus to send the email:
Well I got more news from last night. My friend Joe who lives 3 blocks from the park sent me an email about last night (9-3-02) and his trip to the Extreme park............."We loaded up and cruzed down to the park last night to find all the lights were out. We thought it might have been a tree that knocked over a power line. Then we noticed there were about 10 police cars around the park. I was kind of drunk so I sent Megan down to ask what is going on. They told her the lights were out and to leave NOW! Then she asked if they knew when they were coming back on.The police told them they are working on it. I didn't realize police have an electrician degree. So we went back to the house and called the electric co. They said they did not know anything about it but on some city park property the city has control of the lights and electricity. We still do not know what's going on. Its all kinds of sketchy around the park now.I drove by the park this morning and it was business as usual and everyone is skating now"......
Yet another Louisville newpaper article about the impending Helmet Law, not that that's a bad thing when you might have a maglight upside the head. And anybody knows that's been to the Louisville Extreme park is that the problem isn't so much to wear a helmet or not to wear a helmet, it's that damn "pit of doom". I hope somebody has told the city why almost all of the kids that are mangled are on bikes and falling in the same spot, this little 10 foot deck that separates the roll out of the street course and where the bowl gets 11 feet deep. The first time I rolled out of he street course I was shocked to find myself staring at the pit all of a sudden. I'm fine with a helmet rule, but the city should block that roll out of the street course so we don't have to deal with as many slow walking EMT's and cops with maglights a swinging. Has anyone told the city the problem? Maybe everybody that's seen the problem ought to write an email to the writer of this articles. Nancy Rodriguez wrote this particular article which still does not address the problem of the narrow deck between the 11' bowl and the roll out of the street course, if you've been there and know what I'm talking about then you ought to send out one more email today just as I'm doing to nrodriguez@courier-journal.com and copy pplatt@courier-journal.com It could save lives and possibly head aches.
Here's what the paper said: Louisville's courier-journal story on the beat down........I think the writers of this article need some input from people who have been biking and skating the park as to why so many kids on BMX bikes are landing on their heads in the same place, the Louisville extreme parks "PIT OF DOOM" Please send an email to sedelen@courier-journal.com regarding this particular fine piece of reporting and give them your opinion on root cause of the accident. You can even copy pplatt@courier-journal.com regarding your opinion of the article.
Here's my response to the
Louisville papers article "Helmet
ordinance takes effect for cyclists, skaters
Gear is required for all users of Extreme Park"
After they once again failed to see the Glaring safety issue of the "PIT
OF DOOM"
I see that the Helmet rule has been enacted, that is good, although, I still have not seen any information concerning "THE PIT OF DOOM" Have you reporters even looked into this. Are you looking for the easy story. It seems to me that YOU could have the most impact on making this change by bringing it to the fore front. I would have to blame reporters for not trying to shed light on this. I would think this story would be the big one for the park "Kids are falling into the bowl due to an unsafe design" by that I mean the roll out from the street course towards the half pipe section of the black diamond course. You know, where all the kids on bike are getting hurt. Hey, report of something new and hopefully YOU CAN HELP SAVE KIDS FROM SERIOUS INJURY. Yes I am upset if you can't tell, DO YOUR JOB, I think that reporting, at least looking into this problem is you job. Unless you want to continue to report how little kids are wearing there helmets and still getting their brain squashed because the unsafe portion of the park. The helmet will not stop a broken neck when a kid on a bike falls 11+ feet to his head. That section of the park needs to be safety-fied. Revisit my old internet article if you read it before. You can check out the link on www.fullpipe.com it's toward the top. If you have not read it before, read it for the first time and share it with somebody that might see the importance of it. Please don't ignore this topic.
Daniel K. Rea
www.fullpipe.com