12/23/24
March 05, 2011
Yankees, Sox Unite to Help Child: An 11-year-old girl who lost her leg in an accident has managed to unite the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. After the daughter of Sox first base coach Ron Johnson needed a prosthetic leg after being hit by a car, Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long asked the team's players to help last September. Members of both teams passed the hat and sent "significant" checks. "You just wanted to help in any way you can," said Yankees pitcher A.J. Burnett. "We're a huge family here. Whether you're a Yankee or anybody else."
Things like this make it increasingly difficult to uphold one's obligations as a Red Sox fan. How can one continue to detest those who do nice things? It just ain't right. The true Red Sox fan would accuse the New Yorkers of sneaking into Johnson's home and stealing his daughter's prosthetic device, not of helping the family through a very difficult time. I see this as another sign of the apocalypse.
OK, OK, I jest. The gesture is really a nice one, and one cannot help but be impressed. Thanks, NYY.
On edit, Kevin Youkilis is working to get Johnson's daughter a new horse to replace the one that was killed in the accident.
posted by Howard_T at 03:49 PM on March 05, 2011
In the article it said "a horse" and I was at first on the fence thinking if it was "her" horse. If she, or her father owned a horse vs. renting one and something happened it kind of changes things. To own a horse you have to have the money to train, feed and stable it. That to me is major expendable cash. No insurance? Why not if you own it? Youkilis is "trying" to replace the horse, a very nice gesture but just write a check it won't be Secretariat! I truly feel sorry for what happened but not so much about the father's lack of responsibility. Would let your daughter drive a car with no insurance? Or ride a horse that you never know might happen? It could throw and paralyze you. Did he have insurance for that? If he did own the horse for his daughter to ride and had no insurance even against some unknown situation, now I believe it's now back on him. Mayhem does happen, and maybe Allstate would have helped if he asked. Not a joke because mayhem does happen and he was not prepared. Again, I cannot say enough about the players from both sides but the real question is why it is necessary.
posted by gfinsf at 08:35 AM on March 06, 2011
Wow. Is there a particular reason you're blaming the girl for the accident? Nothing I've read about this suggests it's her fault.
posted by yerfatma at 11:31 AM on March 06, 2011
Youkilis is "trying" to replace the horse, a very nice gesture but just write a check it won't be Secretariat
If I'm not mistaken, it wasn't Secretariat before. Was that the goal?
I truly feel sorry for what happened but not so much about the father's lack of responsibility. Would let your daughter drive a car with no insurance? Or ride a horse that you never know might happen? It could throw and paralyze you. Did he have insurance for that?
As someone who used to teach five-year-olds to ski black diamonds, I can't get with this line of thinking at all.
If he did own the horse for his daughter to ride and had no insurance even against some unknown situation, now I believe it's now back on him. Mayhem does happen, and maybe Allstate would have helped if he asked. Not a joke because mayhem does happen and he was not prepared.
Do you believe that parents should have to buy riding-a-bike insurance too? If a kid is riding a bike alongside a road -- not on it, although they have every right to -- and they are hit by a car (which would not be on the road at that point), is the parent to blame somehow for not having purchased riding-a-bike insurance for their kid?
posted by lil_brown_bat at 04:56 PM on March 06, 2011
No insurance? Why not if you own it?
Do horse owners normally buy insurance to cover injuries that might occur? Here's a page on liability insurance, but a lawyer's info page suggests that people often mistakenly believe their homeowner's liability insurance would cover accidents involving their horses.
posted by rcade at 07:12 PM on March 06, 2011
lbb, You taught at a ski resort that had black diamond runs, perhaps Stowe? Didn't your ski school have insurance for both you and your students? I would be shocked if it didn't. A tree is not going to move but an out of control skier might run into one despite your instructions. If that happened it would not be on your ticket, it would be the ski resort because they have insurance. Also why is a child or anyone riding a horse on a street where they might come in contact with a car? A horse may weigh 1500 pounds and be spooked and then anything could happen. On a street with cars, that is "mayhem" waiting. The young girl who lost her leg is the victim of that. Horses should be ridden where they are comfortable without distractions and a car might just spook one. Did it happen? Do not know. Most ski instructors I have seen go first and then watch as the students follow the instruction. There is a procedure to follow and to learn. I don't think you positioned your students where others were flying by on snowboards. Correct? So why should a young girl on a horse be on a street with cars going by, it never suggested the driver was out of control an therefore the liability might be on her. Have you ever had to avoid a horse's ass as you drive down a road? Call me one (a horse's ass) but I don't think the horse was on the sidewalk and I don't think the driver was negligent from what was stated. As for KY "trying "to get a new horse, WTF it would be an innings pay to do that.
posted by gfinsf at 09:08 AM on March 07, 2011
Didn't your ski school have insurance for both you and your students?
You're comparing a corporation who is likely to get sued to a parent who bought their kid a horse. Also, just asking, BUT WHAT THE FUCK IS INSURANCE GOING TO DO FOR A GIRL WHO LOST HER LEG? You ought to work in hospice. You'd be a barrel of laughs.
posted by yerfatma at 09:52 AM on March 07, 2011
lbb, You taught at a ski resort that had black diamond runs, perhaps Stowe? Didn't your ski school have insurance for both you and your students? I would be shocked if it didn't. A tree is not going to move but an out of control skier might run into one despite your instructions. If that happened it would not be on your ticket, it would be the ski resort because they have insurance.
Depending on what "it" you're talking about, that's not how it works. There's this concept called "assumed risk", and I'm not a lawyer or an insurance person, but boiled down in simple terms, it means that when you go skiing, you agree that all kinds of stuff can happen even if everybody's taking every reasonable precaution. If stuff happens to a skier, unless someone else did something flagrantly wrong, it's on the skier. That's what all the fine print on the lift ticket is about. And yes, my students skied out in the general public, where I could not be completely in control of anything that might happen to them. I never had to sled a kid off the hill, but I did do mop-up from time to time with situations with other guests. If two guests got tangled up on the hill, of course we'd give them first aid and assist them to getting to definitive medical care, but it certainly wasn't "on the ski resort".
Also why is a child or anyone riding a horse on a street where they might come in contact with a car? A horse may weigh 1500 pounds and be spooked and then anything could happen. On a street with cars, that is "mayhem" waiting. The young girl who lost her leg is the victim of that. Horses should be ridden where they are comfortable without distractions and a car might just spook one. Did it happen? Do not know.
The information from the article, which I assume you have read, is that she and her horse were struck by a car while riding beside the road. If a car strikes someone who is beside the road...the car has struck a person who is not on the road...and therefore, the car was not on the road...and so I'm not sure why you're trying to put it down to the horse spooking. Yeah, some horses are jumpy, and you have to be careful where you take them and who rides them, but that's got to do with the individual horse. Riding beside a road is pretty common practice. My brother rides his horses beside a road all the time, and I do the same when I'm visiting him. Cars and trucks drive by. The horses don't spook. Obviously when you're driving, you have to refrain from doing obviously idiotic things like creeping up behind the horse and laying on your horn, or playing chicken or screeching your brakes, but it's no more than you'd better do when you encounter a pedestrian or a cyclist or another car, for that matter.
Most ski instructors I have seen go first and then watch as the students follow the instruction. There is a procedure to follow and to learn. I don't think you positioned your students where others were flying by on snowboards. Correct?
They skied in the general public. Of course there was traffic. Of course some of it was moving fast. If your job is to teach people to ski, part of your job is to teach them to deal with hazards, which include other users.
So why should a young girl on a horse be on a street with cars going by, it never suggested the driver was out of control an therefore the liability might be on her.
So the driver was driving off the road...and was in control? And this makes it less the driver's fault?
Have you ever had to avoid a horse's ass as you drive down a road? Call me one (a horse's ass) but I don't think the horse was on the sidewalk and I don't think the driver was negligent from what was stated.
Heh. Sidewalk? Most places where people own horses don't have sidewalks. I live in one such place. It's very common to encounter people riding horses beside the road. Why is this such a startling thing to you? People walk and run beside roads, people ride bicycles in roads, and in rural areas such as my town, we also get a big mix of farm equipment as well. Of course we have accidents on our roads, but I can't recall a single one that happened between different types of road users. All the ones that I can think of were either "drunk fool in a car goes up against a stone wall and loses" or "idiot with more horsepower than skill takes a curve way too fast on his motorcycle, goes up against a logging truck and loses" or "arrogant twit that thinks his SUV and 4WD gives him Magical Traction goes up against black ice and loses". No horses freaking out and jumping in front of cars to crush the legs of their young riders.
As for KY "trying "to get a new horse, WTF it would be an innings pay to do that.
Maybe so, but why are you trying to beef with it? Most people won't give the price of a Starbucks latte to a homeless veteran, so why look down on Youkilis for giving the equivalent (assuming your WTF has any truth to it) of an inning's pay?
posted by lil_brown_bat at 10:21 AM on March 07, 2011
llb and youfatma you both think I am ahole for thinking the driver might have had a reasonable expectation to not have not one but two horses in his/her path as they drove around a corner in what I would expect a small New England town. I grew up in New England, and drove the up and down the curvy roads of Connecticut, Mass, Vermont and New Hampshire. I never saw one horse in the road much less two. Please read the following and then tell me who might have been at fault and why is much as I hate insurance, it might have been needed here.
It still haunts Daphane sometimes as she pulls up to a stop light, as she sits in her house. She sees what she saw then. "When I drove up, it was like a nightmare,'' Daphane said. "It was a bad movie. It was awful. I started screaming, No, no, no.' That's all I remember.'' She had, reluctantly, given permission for the two girls to ride over to a friend's house that bright, hot August afternoon. They rode bareback, going just down the street, only allowed because of the limited traffic expected on a post-church Sunday. Daphane told them to take care, to look out. They got within a city block of their destination, just before the hill crests, a spot they always knew was trouble. Cheyanne was riding on the right side of the road, but Bridget was on the left. She started to cross back to her sister. That was when he hit her. The car driver was to expect that? I feel sorry for the girl....bekieve me, but WTF as yerfatma said???
posted by gfinsf at 10:05 AM on March 10, 2011
I grew up in New England, and drove the up and down the curvy roads of Connecticut, Mass, Vermont and New Hampshire. I never saw one horse in the road much less two.
That's quite a trick to have never seen a horse in New England unless you stay in the cities. And now you're trying to make the driver a victim?
posted by yerfatma at 10:22 AM on March 10, 2011
I grew up in New England, and drove the up and down the curvy roads of Connecticut, Mass, Vermont and New Hampshire. I never saw one horse in the road much less two.
I lived in Maryland and southern Pennsylvania for about 3 years, and I often drove the back roads of northern Baltimore County and northern Harford County in Maryland. It was horse country, and I knew it. I always expected to see horses and riders on the roads, thus I kept the speed down and prepared to slow and stop at any sign of agitation by the horse. On a couple of occasions the riders acknowledged my efforts with a wave or a nod of thanks. When I worked in Huntsville, Alabama, I occasionally drove some of the back roads between Manchester and McMinnville, Tennessee, while taking weekend jaunts to relieve boredom. It is rural, one can see horses in the fields, so one should be aware that riders might be on the roads. I don't know what the Tennessee Highway Patrol investigation revealed about speed, conditions, and so on, so I cannot say where the fault lies. It is established that Johnson's daughter was riding across the road below the crest of a hill, thus putting herself in some jeopardy. I can't place any blame on either party. I think it might be too much to expect an 11-year-old to really think the situation through, as it might be too much to expect a driver to look for riders over every hill. It was a tragic accident, and the only good is that it did not have a worse outcome.
posted by Howard_T at 04:59 PM on March 10, 2011
When I worked in Huntsville, Alabama
Space City? Did you hang out with them danged von Braun boys?
I can't place any blame on either party.
What about the girl for being too lazy to re-grow her leg?
posted by yerfatma at 06:27 PM on March 10, 2011
For God's sake, in New England if you have ever been there, and Mr. Clancy, you have, so you know there are shoulders of grass on nearly every country road. That's why fortunately I have never driven by horses "in the street." Parades, well of course, but cars are not driven through them. Maybe I have been lucky that I have not encountered a horse in the road or maybe their riders did not ride them there because of the inherent danger to the horse and themselves. Again, as I have said before, I feel sorry for the young girl and I wish her the best in her recovery. When charges are filed against the driver please let me be the first to know. And may I ask what does I can't place any blame on either party. What about the girl for being too lazy to re-grow her leg? mean???
posted by gfinsf at 08:21 AM on March 11, 2011
I hope someone reads this and is at the game with a video camera. I think it would be great to see his thanks to the players. I think even the Sox and Yankee players should join in some mutual support of Johnson. Let's hope, it's still spring training.