Child dies at Huntsville Air Show
Posted by BrianA five year old child was killed at today’s Huntsville Air Show when a freakishly powerful “microburst” of wind toppled a number of tents. The child’s name has not been released yet.
Details are still a bit sketchy at this time. I have read that the child was killed by either a portable air conditioner unit or a generator. WHNT is reporting that the event coordinators would not allow tents to be staked into the pavement. Instead they had to be restrained with water barrels. I’m not sure if that is standard for these types of events. I wouldn’t be too excited about a bunch of tent pegs being nailed into the pavement at my facility so I can’t blame the decision from that perspective. But you can guarantee that if a lawyer can show that the barrels provided less tie down force than pegs and that injuries could have been avoided if the tents were anchored more securely that there will be some serious lawsuits.
It goes without saying that this is a terrible tragedy. It’s hard to even think about such an event tearing apart your life.
Update: The family understandably wants the victim’s ID withheld overnight so that they can notify family. I just saw a news clip on WAAY about the story. The camera was surveying the damage and briefly focused on a woman, visibly wailing and crying, on her hands and knees in the grass. The anchor stated that they understand that she is the mother of the boy who died. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought it was unbelievably tacky to show a clip of her grieving for her son who just died in a freak accident and point her out during the broadcast.
Update x 2: I thought WAAY was classless by looping the video of the grieving mother until I switched over to WAFF. They led off their newscast by releasing the name and hometown of the boy who died despite the family’s request for that information to be withheld overnight. Twelve hours - is that too much to ask? I hope that WAFF producers are happy with themselves if some of the kid’s relatives learn about his death from the evening news instead of family. Jerks. Absolute jerks.
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June 29th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
I was there in the crowd. We saw the rain headed our way. We also saw a few bolts of lighting. However, we had no idea that these straight line winds were coming.
June 30th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Yeah, stuff like that on the news is the reason I have no intention of ever using my journalism degree. I know not all journalists behave so poorly, but insensitivity to tragic events is kind of par for the course for the career. I just couldn’t do it.
June 30th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a
Running bet
Get the widow on the set!
We need dirty laundry ~Eagles~
The media is absolutely heartless.
I am really feeling for the family who lost the child. I’ve lost a child myself and there are simply no words to describe what one goes through at such a time. That poor mama and the sweet little fella who only wanted to see the airplanes. How awful.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
After the Enterprise tornado that killed eight kids at the high school I went down to help clean up around my parent’s house. Before I left to come home I took a walk around a neighborhood near the high school. I took my camera with me and took pictures - the media was ignoring the area in favor of the more lucrative school deaths. It made me feel exploitive. I don’t think I could make a career out of sticking a camera or microphone in the faces of suffering people over and over again.