There are slip and falls and then there are sweat and falls. Russian Vladimir Ladyzhensky died this week during the World Sauna Championship. Competitions based on sitting in a room with 110 (Celsius) degree temperatures would seem an easy basis for a tort lawsuit in terms of foreseeable injury.
Ladyzhensky and Timo Kaukonen of Finland were the finalists in the competition when Ladyzhensky collapsed.
Notably, the Finnish finalist also had to be taken to a hospital. After about six minutes, both finalists collapsed. Witnesses said that both appeared to have suffered burns.
As we saw with the recent sweat lodge case, this would result in not just civil lawsuits but a criminal investigation in the United States.
Source: ABC
Get these ‘winners’ a Darwin award…
Buddha, I heard they considered hot-tubbing an event for next year, but the board was slightly worried about foreseeable injuries from sitting in boiling water for too long so now they’ll probably just have a breath-holding competition…
contestants will be strapped under water, last one to drown wins.
A sport? What about hot tubbing? Is that a sport now too?
maybe the east Africans didnt have any food because their leaders follow this pattern:
“The seekers of unearned material benefits are merely financial parasites, moochers, looters or criminals, who are too limited in number and in mind to be a threat to civilization, until and unless they are released and legalized by the seekers of unearned greatness.
Unearned greatness is so unreal, so neurotic a concept that the wretch who seeks it cannot identify it even to himself: to identify it, is to make it impossible. He needs the irrational, undefinable slogans of altruism and collectivism to give a semiplausible form to his nameless urge and anchor it to reality—to support his own self-deception more than to deceive his victims. “The public,” “the public interest,” “service to the public” are the means, the tools, the swinging pendulums of the power-luster’s self-hypnosis.
Since there is no such entity as “the public,” since the public is merely a number of individuals, any claimed or implied conflict of “the public interest” with private interests means that the interests of some men are to be sacrificed to the interests and wishes of others. Since the concept is so conveniently undefinable, its use rests only on any given gang’s ability to proclaim that “The public, c’est moi”—and to maintain the claim at the point of a gun.
No such claim has ever been or can ever be maintained without the help of a gun—that is, without physical force. But, on the other hand, without that claim, gunmen would remain where they belong: in the underworld, and would not rise to the councils of state to rule the destinies of nations.
There are two ways of claiming that “The public, c’est moi”: one is practiced by the crude material parasite who clamors for government handouts in the name of a “public” need and pockets what he has not earned; the other is practiced by his leader, the spiritual parasite, who derives his illusion of “greatness”—like a fence receiving stolen goods—from the power to dispose of that which he has not earned and from the mystic view of himself as the embodied voice of “the public.” [pp. 88-89. The Monument Builders]
Seems like Idi Amin to a tee.
Here in the U.S., certain groups are doing some pretty unpleasant things for money, as well, as one participant recently reported.
Those involved are receiving cash or drugs to harass other Americans. Some of them are are being handed “get out of jail free” cards. Some are simply sadists who are doing it “for fun” — for sport.
‘The Finns also used the sauna as a place to cleanse the mind, rejuvenate and refresh the spirit, and prepare the dead for burial. ‘
“Jos ei viina, terva tai sauna auta, tauti on kuolemaksi.”
~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauna
yup, the illness was fatal
I read that in Brazil people do really unpleasant things, such as let scorpions bite them, on television, for very small sums, because they are so broke.
Yep … I was agreeing 🙂
Blouise,
I didn’t intend to put a question mark at the end of that sentence, but I trust that you know that the question was “rhetorical.”
anon nurse
1, August 8, 2010 at 11:43 am
Blouise, Back in the 80s, in East Africa, some American soldiers participated in food-eating contest at a picnic on July 4th. I found it to be in extremely poor taste (no pun intended), given the economic conditions in the country at the time. There were “locals” in attendance. Why does the term “ugly American” come to mind?
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Because it’s true
Blouise, Back in the 80s, in East Africa, some American soldiers participated in food-eating contest at a picnic on July 4th. I found it to be in extremely poor taste (no pun intended), given the economic conditions in the country at the time. There were “locals” in attendance. Why does the term “ugly American” come to mind?
Too bad they weren’t stuffing their faces with hotdogs at the same time … or ribs … or watermelon … whatever else we provide useless contests for.
230 degrees? They should change the name of the competition from World Sauna Championship to World Fool Roasting Championship.
How about assumption of the risk? If the guy’s a professional sauna sitter, he should have known he was pushing the envelope. Reminds me of those people who do deep diving without scuba equipment to see how long they can last-they too know the risks.
I am opting for the rare side of the US Fahrenheit….are we still the only country using this system.
I found this on wiki:
Only in the United States, Belize, and Jamaica does the Fahrenheit system continue to be used, but only for non-scientific use. The rest of the world has adopted the Celsius scale.
230 degrees? I think the legal liability would turn on whether the contest organizers going for medium or well-done.
230 degrees does sound like a long, long time…110? I was like whats the issue? 230, well, now let us all fall down….kinda like jumping without a parachute….
“…in which participants were asked to withstand a sweltering 110 degrees Celsius for as long as possible.”
110 Celsius is 230 degrees Fahrenheit
I would think that they would monitor for hyperthermia during competitions of this sort.
Stay for as long as possible….and after 6 minutes the doors were opened…
I am sorry this does not sound very long…..