I don't pay that much attention to football, so I did not know this.

[Susan Calvin]

The NFL was not going to stop the game. I would say unbelievable, but I totally believe this disgusting fact.

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/nfl-damar-hamlin-buffalo-bills-cincinnati-bengals/

[Effete Snob]

1. If someone has a heart attack at an Amazon distribution center...

...does Amazon shut it down?

I can't think of too many businesses involving tens of thousands of dollars which shut down because one person has a heart attack.

But if they make nearly a million dollars a year, then, yes, that is different.

No other workplace, except maybe small businesses, would do that. No factories, large retail operations, offices, etc..

Happens every day. Nobody is disgusted by it.

[unweird]

2. Poor analogy, should include a violent interaction to be more accurate

When there is violence involved you do see shutdowns and closures. And at the core of football there is a strong element of violence.

[Effete Snob]

4. Try lifting boxes all day long

I have no idea what you mean by "violent interaction". Tackling is part of the game.

My goodness, do you think they shut down the arena when someone gets knocked out at a boxing match?

[unweird]

8. There is no violence in lifting boxes

But if a coworker were to assault another employee to the point of death there would probably be some sort of a shutdown to deal with the aftermath.
Your boxing match is another poor analogy. When one is knocked out the match does end.

[Effete Snob]

10. This is a truly weird point you are trying to make

There was no "assault" here, as one might deduce from the fact that no one has been charged with assault or from the fact that getting hit and tackled is part of the job in question.

[BeerBarrelPolka]

18. As

As a former boxer let me tell you, when one match ends by KO, the next match soon follows (unless it was the last fight of the night).

[Alpeduez21]

6. This is a poor analogy

The violence of football is expected and paid for. It is the reason for the activity. There was no surprise element to the violence of the game. The violence is limited to those on the field who are engaged in very controlled or rule regulated instances of violence.

Again, if his leg was broken and he was taken to the hospital the game would most likely have continued. The fact that b/c he needed CPR and the game needed to be stopped is incongruous to the history of this televised violence.

[unweird]

11. Did you catch the part about why CPR was needed?

He was in cardiac arrest. What many people describe as ‘he died’. The CPR and a defibrillator was used to bring him back. This was a very rare event with dire outcomes.

As to an expectation of violence in football, I get that. But expecting that people are going to die and the game, the GAME, will play on is not expected.

[Effete Snob]

13. You are conversing with a cycling fan

I can pretty much guarantee you that if Alpe d'Huez here has been watching his favorite sport for the last several years, he has seen several people die in competition, in which the competition continues.

[milestogo]

17. Football is a team sport; cycling is not.

If your teammate and friend drops dead in front of you, that's traumatic.

[Effete Snob]

19. What?

Ummm... road cycling is a team sport.

This is Wouter Weylandt, who died in the Giro d'Italia being attended to by persons from his TEAM car and medical crew:



His death was broadcast live to millions of fans.

This is his TEAM the next morning:



https://www.velonews.com/events/giro-ditalia/giro-honors-weylandt-with-neutral-stage-peloton-vows-to-race-wednesday/

LIVORNO, Italy (VN) – The peloton paid its due respects to Wouter Weylandt in an emotional tribute to the fallen Belgian rider, but promises to get back to the business of racing bikes in Wednesday’s fifth stage at the Giro d’Italia.

------

Road cycling is most certainly not an individual sport. It is a team sport.

[milestogo]

21. Ok, but they did not leave him in the road and keep cycling.

[Alpeduez21]

24. Nor did anyone think of leaving Hamlin on the field

and playing around his body. This is a bit of a dramatic statement.

[Effete Snob]

31. Actually, the other cyclists kept going of course

Just like they kept going after Remco Evenepoel did a swan dive off of that bridge where he broke his hip.

[Effete Snob]

30. Yes, they kept cycling

The staff attended to him, but other cyclists most certainly went around the scene and kept cycling.

Elsewhere in this thread, I posted a picture of the death of Michael Goolaerts, whose dead body was most certainly left by the side of the road as the race proceeded.

Professional cycling is downright grisly, and the cyclists keep going no matter what horrors they pass.

Annemiek Van Vleuten was unconscious and motionless for quite a while in the Rio Olympics:



She stayed there like a discarded rag doll while the race continued.

[milestogo]

32. I don't think I'm going to become a cycling fan.

[Effete Snob]

35. .

When nothing goes wrong, it's pretty spectacular to watch. There are risks, and the risks are known and accepted.

When people watch an act like, say, the knife thrower at the circus:



What is it, really, that makes this act entertaining or exciting?

It is a form of entertainment in which the possibility of something horrible happening is part of what makes it exciting.

Yes, the skill of the knife thrower is the impressive thing, but that could be demonstrated in a lot of ways.

We enjoy watching people gamble with their own mortality:

[malaise]

27. There is violent interaction in many a workplace

It's called markets before society - greed is good - make money for us - we are all disposable humans.
It's that simple. Some companies deny workers sick leave and a decent vacation.
the entire system sucks.

[Alpeduez21]

3. This really does speak to the privileged position of the NFL and it's players

They can choose to work or not. The concession employees don't get paid. The parking lot attendees don't get paid. The restaurants and bars lose business. The NFL still gets its ad revenue.

The same people so very concerned about Derick Hamlin will show no pity about the homeless people they step over on their way to Starbucks.

If the guy broke his leg and got carted off the field the game would still go on. I am flummoxed by this situation. I don't really care if the game was played or not I just watched reruns of Bones instead but I just don't understand the world coming to a halt cause this guy needed CPR. I hope he's alright and feel for his family and friends but this reaction seems a bit like crocodile tears . Never forget they blackballed Colin Kapernick.

[Effete Snob]

7. A whole lot of people got fucked, yes

A tremendous number of working stiffs didn't get paid. People who paid a LOT of money for what might have been the only football game they were going to see may not be able to see the rescheduled game even if their tickets were honored. Advertisers got screwed.

I can't think of any activity involving tens of thousands of people that shuts down over someone having a heart attack. Happens all of the time.

I had a deadline in a matter the day after mine - coded in the ambulance and was defibrillated back to life - and nobody was going to extend it for me since I could still use my laptop in bed in the ICfuckingU.

I'm glad it looks like he's going to be okay, but life simply does not stop in any other enterprise that large when this happens.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

16. That was also basically the Super Bowl for Fantasy Football leagues the world over

So many good (and hence rostered) offensive players on the field ... Allen, Burrow, Mixon, Higgins, Chase, Diggs, Davis, Singletary, etc.

And the 2nd to last week in the regular season (as this game was) is the weekend of the Finals in fantasy. And a LOT of people aren't just playing for fun, it's not uncommon for winners of leagues to win $1000 or sometimes a lot more.

In our league, one of the finalists had 3 good players out there, the other guy's team was done (all his players already played) and the latter was well ahead, but it was not unthinkable the former might've caught up with a big game from his 3 guys.

So what should happen if this game is straight-up cancelled/never finished? Yahoo's software that runs our league shows the game as PPD, but the interface otherwise basically shows the season as completed, its chosen the winners of the weekend, and of the league.

To me the best argument that the League was 'right' to call off the rest of the game is that I don't think there's any way the Bills could've competed at the level they are capable of under those circumstances. It would've really helped the Bengals as they'd not have been nearly as emotionally burdened, it wasn't their teammate at the hospital clinging to life.

But I totally agree on your general point, and wouldn't have been complaining much if the NFL had insisted it be played. There was no increased danger to anyone else in the stadium created by this unfortunate injury, and games have gone on after horrible injuries every other time (Ryan Shazier being a good example).

And most importantly, stopping the game in no way improved the chances of a good health outcome for the injured player. If stopping the game would somehow help him, it would be a different story and of course I'd be like 'they had to stop it', but the stoppage in no way did so.

[milestogo]

23. Joe Burrow was going to put up 66 Fantasy points so I could win a consolation game.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

29. Funny you say that cause our league has tons of bonuses triggered by yardage totals

Throw for 300+, 2 point bonus. Throw for 400, another 3 point bonus. Rush for 100, 2 point bonus, etc, etc.

Tua actually put up 66.86 for me by our league scoring system in week 2 vs. Baltimore.

That sure as shit was not going to happen vs. that Bills defense Monday night tho

I won both my consolation games and leaped from 10th to 7th ... yay me!

[milestogo]

34. Congratulations.

[Effete Snob]

9. Alpe d'Huez

Speaking of which, cycling remains one of the few sports in which fatalities occur pretty regularly.

Wouter Weylandt died in a descent in the Giro. Antoine Demoitte got hit by a motorcycle in Gent Wevelgem.

They left Michael Goolaerts dead on the side of the road the year Sagan went on to win Paris-Roubaix:



The person on the side of the road there is already dead. The only reason it looks like he is sitting up is because he died while riding and then coasted to a crash. Several hours later, this was the finish line:



Every time they go up Ventoux, they pass the memorial to Tom Simpson, who died right on the spot:





If one is looking for a violent, barbaric sport with blood, gore and occasional death - cycling is it, hands down.

edit to add: Who ever thought that Fabio Jakobsen was going to return to cycling - or ever be able to remember his own name.

[old as dirt]

41. Jack Trice

100 years ago, in 1923, it appears that the game was completed. At least there is a final score given in this article.

https://andscape.com/features/jack-trice-life-and-football-career-were-tragically-cut-short/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Trice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Trice_Stadium

https://digitalcollections.lib.iastate.edu/islandora/object/isu:JackTrice

[BannonsLiver]

5. This has been debunked.

But as you said, you don’t pay much attention to football.

[jcgoldie]

36. Its been denied by the NFL

"They've been given five minutes to quote-unquote to get ready to go back to playing, that's the word we get from the league."

-Joe Buck

[BannonsLiver]

38. It's also been debunked by reporting done since so it's not just the league.

Joe Buck had no more knowledge about what was going on than people watching at home in the moment.

[jcgoldie]

39. Got a link of any reporting that isn't sourcing the NFL?

Joe Buck said five times on the air while the teams were on the field that that was information they received from the league.

Pretty obvious why the NFL would deny it now. Much less so why Buck would repeatedly say that in the moment.

[2naSalit]

12. In the past players have died on the field...

Yet the game went on. The players refused to keep playing this time, the first time the game was ever stopped.

So the peak entertainment of capitalism results in the price of a life on display. In capitalism, everything has a monetary value.

[Effete Snob]

14. Workplace deaths occur regardless of the economic system

In 2021, over 5,000 people died on the job.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.nr0.htm

Key findings from the 2021 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries

- The 3.6 fatal occupational injury rate in 2021 represents the highest annual rate since 2016.
- A worker died every 101 minutes from a work-related injury in 2021.
- The share of Black or African American workers fatally injured on the job reached an all time high in
2021, increasing from 11.4 percent of total fatalities in 2020 to 12.6 percent of total fatalities in 2021.
Deaths for this group climbed to 653 in 2021 from 541 in 2020, a 20.7-percent increase. The fatality rate
for this group increased from 3.5 in 2020 to 4.0 per 100,000 FTE workers in 2021.
- Suicides continued to trend down, decreasing to 236 in 2021 from 259 in 2020, an 8.9-percent decrease.
- Workers in transportation and material moving occupations experienced a series high of 1,523 fatal
work injuries in 2021 and represent the occupational group with the highest number of fatalities. This is
an increase of 18.8 percent from 2020.
- Transportation incidents remained the most frequent type of fatal event in 2021 with 1,982 fatal injuries,
an increase of 11.5 percent from 2020. This major category accounted for 38.2 percent of all work-
related fatalities for 2021.

[2naSalit]

20. Not really...

The point I was trying to address. Yes, workplace deaths are pretty high and I have no idea what each employer does in response to each death on the job.

I was pointing out that football is a product of a capitalist system which eventually puts price-tags on everything, including the most, allegedly, sacred thing, life itself.

And this event brings out the very arguments made on this thread; is this a workplace/monetary question to resume the game or is it a morality/decency issue?

Which is the stronger argument? Is it all about the benjamins or is it more of a morality thing?

[Effete Snob]

28. A morality thing....

What would have been "immoral" about continuing the game?

Statistically, athletes get injured and taken off of the field. It is a certainty that it will happen. It is an inherent risk in a contact sport. We KNOW in advance, that this sort of thing is GOING to happen. It's just a matter of probability and time. You have people taking blows to the chest as part of the game. They are TRAINED to hit the numbers on their opponent as hard as they can.

How many fans, out of tens of thousands in a stadium, are likely to have a heart attack? Does that happen? Sure. Is it "moral" for the game to continue?

But, take the Amazon distribution center. You've got hundreds of people in a workplace who - again this is a statistical certainty to occur in one - witness a heart attack. Do they go home for the day or keep working?

If the driver of the UPS truck has a fatal crash while delivering your package, that package is picked up from the crash scene, put on another truck, and delivered to you.

This is like the George Carlin observation on Muhammad Ali not going to Vietnam - "I'll beat 'em up, but I won't kill 'em."

[underpants]

22. Chuck Hughes

For some fans, the 24-year-old Bills star's medical emergency evokes the death of Chuck Hughes more than 50 years ago, who also collapsed during a game. To date, Hughes remains the only NFL player to die after collapsing on the field, according to most sources.

https://time.com/6244346/chuck-hughes-died-nfl-game-damar-hamlin/

[2naSalit]

26. Thanks.

There was a lengthy piece on it somewhere yesterday. I stopped watching anything after a short time.

[fightforfreedom]

15. It was OK to cancel the game that night. But they should have played the next day, next night.

The fans paid for their tickets. Stadium workers need to get paid.

This looks like a freak incident. It was sad, scary. But that's how life is sometimes. This type of thing can and has happened in all sports.

Basketball, baseball, etc.

They should have played the game the next night and before the game started paid tribute to the player and his family.

[underpants]

25. Gambling is the chief concern

The NFL tries to pretend it’s not in the gambling business but it is.

[Genki Hikari]

33. This happens all the time out here in the real world.

You get exposed to it only because this particular near-death thing happened on TV. But most Americans are used to management being unsympathetic to death on the job.

Since so many postal workers stay in the job so long that it happens a lot, we postal workers had tons of stories about people dying on the work floor, and how supervisors basically told us to keep working despite it all. One time, a guy dropped his nitrogen pill he was trying to take when having a heart attack, people were trying to help him find it, and the bosses were literally screaming at the employees to get back to work, the heart attack guy would "find his pill or not, not your concern."

Seriously.

Postal supervisors were so callous that we used to joke that if someone died on the job, management policy was to clock out the literal deadbeat before calling 911.

That's what it's like out here in the real world. People die on the job, and management says, so what? Get back to work, peon!

[fightforfreedom]

37. I can confirm what you said about the post office is true.

The workplace culture at the post office is fucking bizarre and dangerous. There is a reason tens of thousands of workers have left the post office over the past few decades. The sad thing is, it doesn't have to be that way. The postal service is a service. It is not a profit driven corporation. Postal management acts like a worker has committed murder if they take too long to take a piss.

Postal workers are some of the most dedicated workers in our country, hands down. You would think management would respect that. They don't.

[maxsolomon]

40. There have been horrific injuries in the past, and the games resumed.

Joe Theisman's leg break, Tim Krumrie's leg break in the Superb Owl, players with spinal injuries put in a neck brace and strapped to a back board, etc.

Just none where CPR was required. It freaked the Buffalo players the fuck out. Given their emotional reactions, they wouldn't have been able to play well after that.

If this happened, it's doubtful it was directed by, say, Roger Goddell. More likely the Refs just said "get ready", like they would for any other injury.

[usajumpedtheshark]

42. As a former athletic trainer, what disgusts me is

that the incident had to be televised for people to realize sports participation is inherently risk. Where is the public outcry about the many other deaths that have occurred during practice or conditioning? Or those who end up with life-altering injuries or conditions? The chance of injury or death is present at every level of athletics.

I worked at the small college level - the level where academics are supposed to have priority over athletics. When I started employment in 1986, it was rare to see an incoming freshman who had suffered a serious injury in high school. Ten years later it was all too common and in almost every sport- football, ice hockey, field hockey, rugby, lacrosse, wrestling, gymnastics, basketball, volleyball, baseball, softball, track and field, swimming and even cheer.

Sports can be made safer but stressing the body during sports and exercise will always carry an inherent risk.