Posted on 10/09/2007 8:54:27 AM PDT by CedarDave
Two women, including one who is 6 months pregnant, hurt near Kim and Saratoga.
Two women have been taken to the hospital with injuries following a new hot-air balloon crash around 9 this morning in Rio Rancho, KOB-TV is reporting.
One of the women, who is 37, is six months pregnant, and the other is 27, Eyewitness News 4 reported.
Two others also were hurt when the large balloon they were riding in struck the roof of a home near Kim and Saratoga then traveled on to a second house where they knocked over that home's air-conditioning unit, KOB-TV reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
Many, many bystanders helping to prevent the tragedy witnessed the fall to her death. (Journal is free after watching a commercial video)
bummer
NM PING
Just to clarify, the first crash occurred around 8:40 with one injury and the second around 9 a.m. with two injuries, both in Rio Rancho.
I think the days of having enough landing spots are over.
Sad. The weather was perfect this AM.
A woman who is 6 months pregnant goes up in a hot air balloon? She doesn’t have much regard for her baby, does she.
Have any numbers to back that up? I didn't think so.
That part of Rio Rancho is a heavily used landing area when the wind is blowing right. We had an incident (with property damage) on our street in ‘01, and once a balloon landed in our church parking lot during a sermon (Rio West church on Pasilla Rd., just west of 528).
The growth in that area is problematic. The west side of 528 used to be wide open, but now there are houses (and churches) everywhere.
Have you ever seen a “good” balloon landing? Not anything I would put a pregnant woman through, any more than she should be riding roller coasters at Cedar Point.
At least someone was saved the trouble of winterizing their swamp cooler, if that's what was damaged.
:^)
Results.— From 1964 to 1995, a total of 495 hot-air balloon crashes involving 1533 persons were reported and included 92 fatalities and 384 serious injuries. Pilot error or incapacitation was determined subjectively by crash investigators to contribute to 85.1% of the crashes. In univariate analysis, collision with the ground was the most significant predictor of a fatality or serious injury, and power-line contact was the most significant predictor of fatality. In multiple logistic regression, only the type of object struck by a balloon predicted a fatal crash or a fatality or serious injury.
Conclusions.— Although a number of factors likely contribute to increased severity of hot-air balloon crashes, the object struck during a crash is most predictive of fatality or serious injury. Preventive efforts are needed to decrease future injuries.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/279/13/1011
It would be a waste of time checking vehicle deaths, you know what the results would be.
And the day after a fatal accident at the same balloon festival! As for the relative danger of cars, if she has the sense to stay out car with operational airbags, the car is definitely safer. But it’s really not a valid comparison, as cars are needed for transportation to important things like work, food shopping, and doctor appointments — IOW, there’s a risk/benefit calculation, and the benefit side wins. There is no tangible benefit to going for a ride in a hot air balloon. Sure, it’s fun, but so are a lot of alternatives that would carry a lot less risk.
Now you’ve done it. Folks from all over will be asking what a swamp cooler is.
Only those that don’t know what a search engine is....
A swamp cooler (more formally called an evaporative cooler) is essentially a large box-like frame containing a big fan and walled in by water-wetted pads, usually made of cedar shavings or cellulose. The fan whooshes the hot outside air through the dripping pads (which are continually soaked by a water pump), cooling the air by about 20 ºF as the air evaporates water molecules from the pads. The fan then blows the water-cooled air through the house and out a deliberate vent.
She probably did’nt know she was pregnant.
Ah... but it is more complex than that...
I could write a book, Zen and the Art of Swamp Cooler Maintenance.
The fan is ying, the pump is yang... all must be in balance or you will flood your air ducts.
Don’t ask me how I know this.
Where we live now we have refrigerated air and a furnace with no pilot light.
Winterizing = set the thermostat switch to “Heat”.
Summerizing = set the thermostat switch to “Cool”.
If we had spent one more year in NM, our Ultracool would have been replaced with a refrigerated unit. I really hate swamp coolers.
Still have a pilot light. :)
Living at 7500’ means no cooling needed whatsoever.
In 12 years I can recall only 3 nights where the ceiling fan wasn’t enough.
I hate swampers too.
Admittedly, I know nothing ‘bout bog coolers. We are usually outdoors in the summer chopping trees for next winters wood for the stove.
While over 42000 people die in car accidents each year, only about 2 die in hot air balloon accidents in the same year. But that does not mean that ballooning is safer. If you compare the two by hours traveled you will find that passenger cars have 0.47 fatalities per million hours traveled while hot air balloons have 3.43 fatalities per hundred thousand hours traveled.
http://www.facworld.com/FACWORLD.nsf/Doc/Hotairballoon
http://www.afn.org/~savanna/risk.htm
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