[pct-l] River Claims Victim

[paul at bluebrain.ca (Paul Mitchell)]

Seems in general that how "safe" an environment is perceived to be may not 
have much to do with how likely you are to be killed in it!

Apparently there's significantly more people killed in hospital accidents 
than car accidents.  I could be wrong, but I thought I'd read on a credible 
report that it was four times as many.  So, 50,000 each year in cars, 
200,000 each year in hospitals (specifically from accidents i.e. drug 
mistakes) and .... how many on the trails?

Stats are pretty pointless unless they're interpreted correctly.  Anybody 
know how to adjust these statistics to take into account the number of 
people in the Sierras each year?  What percentage of us die out in the woods 
versus percentage of the national population killed in car accidents?

Paul


> 50,000 people die (or used to recently) per year in the US
> in auto accidents. Thousands are murdered in our cities each
> year...LA and Oakland and NY have 1 murder a day almost...
>
> So...give me the Sierras (or tetons, or Rockies, or Mt Blanc)
> anytime!!
>
> Just my morbid 1.02 (raised to be consistent with
> the Bush Gas Tax, from .02)
>
> R
>
> On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 11:43:14 EDT, Hiker97 wrote
>> Not to be the harvester of doom on this list, but here is some info
>> from  The Inyo Register.
>>
>> "A mail, 53, died August 31 in Roaring River in Kings Canyon NP.  It
>>  was the fifth time this summer a park visitor has died in the
>> park's streams and  rivers."
>>
>> It seems falling and water are the big killers out there.  I am
>> guessing that each year in the Sierras about 30-40 people die in
>>  accidents.  May be it is a lot higher than this. Then there are all
>>  the injuries too.  Those have to be in the hundreds each year, if
>> not  thousands.
>>
>> All the planning and preparation for a backpacking trip is very
> appropriate.
>>
>> Your hiking buddy, Switchback
>>
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