Safety Challenged

Is it a “guy thing” to have the inability to comprehend that a situation is dangerous or will soon become so? Is this a genetic deficiency? Due to a church responsibility, I was attending a church sledding party yesterday when some men showed up with giant inner-tubes. These men, I must assume, were once boys. These men also have children. Evidently they have an imperfect memory of what they were like as boys and don’t spend much time with their kids because they seemed to be unable to predict that kids, especially boys, will take an activity and escalate it to the red zone unless you stop them. And maybe the tube providers were able to predict the escalation. Perhaps their Y chromosome blocked their common sense development so they were impaired in their ability to reason that a human head hitting a granite rock at 20 miles an hour could cause injury.

As soon as I saw the enormous tubes I knew we needed a few boundaries. But I was not in charge and did not have authority. The kids took the tubes, piled about 7 or 8 people on them and shoved them down the lower, less steep part of the slope. Inner tubes are cushy, but bodies banging into each other aren’t. I hoped everyone would be O.K. on the lower slope since it is not overly steep. I thought an big inner-tube should be O.K. with one or two kids riding it on the upper, steep slope. But I knew kids will escalate and next the step would be six or seven kids on a giant inner-tube flying down the steepest slope. This is exactly what happened. The extra “g” forces increased speed and the stop at the bottom was abrupt. This caused about three kids to walk away limping, crying or both. We could hear one kid’s head “thud” on the ground. There we were at the bottom of the hill forming a first aid unit as we checked for serious injury and observed tears.

Did this circumstance provide a hint to the guys that perhaps this activity should be discontinued and boundaries set? No, they just stood at the bottom of the hill watching complacently as a new group of kids toted another inner-tube up to the steep part hill for another brush with death or disabling injury.

I am equally disgusted with the women in attendance. They stood spinelessly at the bottom of the hill, biting their lips and shuddering. I am fed up with being the only one to stand up to the men. If no common sense is one of the men’s failings in our stake, then no backbone or gumption is one of the women’s.

Finally I loudly burst out, “HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE TO GET HURT BEFORE YOU PUT A STOP TO THIS????” This outburst earned me the shocked attention and glares from two of the men who brought the tubes as well as other men leaders who seemed to be at peace with the prospect of more injuries. A teenaged twit who prides herself on being a “tomboy” responded with, “A lot!” It was interesting to note that the teenager and the inner-tube providers seem to be on the same mental level. I’ve always heard people can be developmentally arrested at certain ages, now I’ve witnessed it.

Still, someone must have heard me because no more large groups rode the big inner-tubes from the top. Everyone was able to walk away for which I am enormously grateful. But for once, could those in charge, take control? AND WHY DO I HAVE TO BE THE ONLY TO STAND UP???