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This was a 250B race with a few of the fastest kids in the country in it if I remember correctly. No one is stopping to help anyone. One of the Vet races maybe a different story. 250B it’s simply not going to happen at a big race. Your local track and it’s a good friend…maybe but still doubtful.
How many times did Alessi get run over during a pro national. How long was he on the track, was there flaggers in that area?
Was the kid hurt from the crash and could not walk or crawl off, did the 4 mitues change the outcome?
Does a rider hold any accountability for crashing in the first place, was he trying to go faster than his ability, should he have been racing a competitive race etc...
I understand varying perspectives, like stasticics i can paint a picture for either side.
Exactly! I’m sure the company that owns Mammoth is done with the race. Good bye Mammoth. Talk about making the sport safer. Let’s employ scumbag attorneys and eliminate said sport.
Yea I know. And I don’t know if anything could have been done to save Aidan. I’m just saying we could use a little more humanity.
* I’m not saying this is what happened*If you knew after the fact that stopping to help could save a life a race seems pretty insignificant.
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This is almost certainly what the outcome will be. Hard to say how much safer the sport will become as a result...
I keep seeing references to "4 minutes" to get to him, but has that actually been confirmed and corroborated or just a sound bite someone ran with and everyone continued? I stopped reading this thread after the 1st couple days and the earliest sketchy reports were from other riders making comments like "I came around the track twice and he was still laying there" and people extrapolated that using average lap times to be~4 minutes. Others in online social posts contradicted that saying they "heard" he never got hit or runover, etc. Is there anything unanimous leaving no doubt he was hit and/or run over that I simply missed?
"Tamponade does not suggest that he was hit. The most common mechanism for tamponade is your body coming to an abrupt stop. Did he high side? Doubt this was simple tip over if he were unable to get off the track. He may have also been hit, but was he already laid out on the track when he was hit? Someone mentioned earlier he had tried to get off the track, so doesn't sound like he was knocked out immediately. Tamponade isn't instant so the scenario where he's up and stumbling for a few seconds before going down fits pretty well with tamponade from the initial crash. Either way, it's a total assumption that the tamponade was caused by being hit."
If you're right about this (and you seem knowledgeable and credible) then this is very significant. If there are kids that hit Aiden and are traumatized by the thought that they are responsible for his death, I hope someone can communicate this to them to reassure them that it's not their fault - that it was the impact from the initial crash that was fatal. They need to know that it wasn't their fault. I hope they aren't dragged into a courtroom where a lawyer is arguing that Aiden died because they hit him - even if the lawyer isn't trying to blame them (going after the track owner for negligence) it's going to be terrible.
Surely someone will make this argument in court - that the tamponade was caused by the initial crash impact and not a any subsequent impacts?
Both theories are credible, both sides will have experts that will tell you without a doubt that their theory is correct. I can give you the name of 5 people I know personally who got burned out on medicine and started consulting. They've got the right letters behind their name and after they've testified a few times then they're expert witnesses. Nobody has to tell them which side their expert opinion needs to land on, it's obvious by who's hiring you. I could be an expert witness consulting on these things tomorrow if I wanted to be but I'm not a very good liar. If medicine beats you down hard enough and you're on the losing end of a few bullshit cases it's not much of a leap to get out and let someone pay you to say what they want you to say instead. For the record, I've personally never been named in a civil suit. Have been served subpoena few times in criminal cases and had to talk to detectives many times but never had to end up testifying.
There are things that don't add up about this case. One of the USA today articles said he had a 6cm laceration to left ventricle but listed cause of death as tamponade. The laceration could have come from penetrating injury, rib fracture, or from resuscitation itself, but if that were part of the initial injury, that should be cause of death and whatever caused it should have also cut pericardium and provided some relief from tamponade.
Bottom line is it's possible that being hit is what did him in, but you can't just assume no injury took place prior or it doesn't make much sense that he would have been down to begin with, and getting hit by another rider after going down is well within the risk we all assume when we ride. 4 minutes keeps getting repeated but that's not when the hit occurred. When it occurred and how long is reasonable for flaggers and officials to take to protect you is going to be the subjective gray area that this case rides on.
I'm going back to my paramedic days here. Cardiac tamponade can result from blunt impact trauma. We may not know if it was from the ground or from being hit by other bikes. He may show signs of being hit by bikes but we'll probably never really know what caused it unless you can see the autopsy but I'll bet the cause will be trauma from blunt force impact.
It's a really sad situation for the family and maybe our sport.
The guys lost a fuckn child m8 do you have to call him a piece of shit? Fine if you don’t agree with the suit but tone it down a notch. Internet has you people writing checks your ass can’t cash.
The only people that truly know what happened to Aidan were right behind him, and both spoke to Aidan’s parents after the crash.
Their account of what happened conflicted with what the parents were told from the promoter.
Time to Aidan was not the issue. Diagnosing and treating tamponade trackside would be impossible. Nothing could have been done to save him except better safety procedures that might have prevented him from being hit in a blind section of the course, furthest from view.
I wonder if there is any drone footage of the crash? That could really shed light on what led up to it and aftermath. The punctured chest protector and heart damage sounds like it could have been a handlebar impact. Nearly everybody I've ever rode with has had 1 of those. I've had more than 1 and also got thrown off my bike forward like Superman over the bars and had the bike somersault and land right on top of my back (2x). Both those situations knocked the wind out of me and were very painful to even breathe for many weeks after the crash.
There was so much conflicting information after this happened, how certain are folks the 4 minutes is even accurate? Any go pros out there showin guys riding by him 2x?
I’ve been to maybe two tracks my entire life where I found something unsafe and stopped riding for the day and notified the track. One track they did nothing about it so I don’t race that day and a helicopter ride came of it. It wasn’t me or anyone I know so not sure how that went.
"No one is stopping to help anyone." why not? Bad parenting?
When someone dies and an ambulance response is involved, people almost universally say it took 2-3x longer for the response than verifiable records indicate. Just putting that out there....
No way to know for certain whether a cardiac tamponade or any other cardiac injury mentioned would have been caused by his initial crash impact, or by being hit by other motorcycles.
As for FOX being sued because they made the chest protector he was wearing....that's not gonna go too far. Every shin guard, chest protector, forearm guard, ballistic jacket, helmet, etc.... has documentation which states it cannot protect against all foreseeable impacts, and most, if not all of them list the maximum energy they are rated to absorb. They'll be leaning heavily on the documentation in this case.
Honestly I had to look up what tamponade was, but it did say it could be caused by blunt trauma to the chest. Is that why they are suing Fox because he was wearing one of their "chest protectors" or roost guards?
Pit Row
Yea that may be true wouldnt doubt it, especially if you are the injured person or attending to them. But you had riders saying they went by him twice while he was down. Using lap times you can figure out how long that would be.
Yeah, I didn't know what it was either. I'm just going off of Truck's explanation - he's an ER doctor so he understands things like autopsy reports and his explanations have been very helpful.
As far as Fox goes, I guess they must think that the equipment didn't perform as it was supposed to. I don't know if it did or not. I have no idea which one he was wearing, or whether it performed as expected.
I just reread the USA today article reporting on the lawsuit. I knew that they were claiming negligence due to not having a flagger where Aiden crashed and I can at least make sense of that. But I didn't clue in until just now that part of the lawsuit alleges unsafe track design. That's a potentially massive problem for the sport. Every motocross track is, to some extent, unsafe - especially when you throw other riders into the mix.. Motocross can survive a lawsuit that is based on the idea that there should be flaggers at blind corners, jumps, etc. because there, ideally, should be flaggers as needed. But I don't see how motocross can survive if people successfully sue based on the idea that the track is too dangerous. I haven't been to Mammoth and don't know the track but based on what people have said here and the footage posted, it doesn't look especially dangerous. If this part of the lawsuit is successful, then that's a disaster for the sport.
The track design part of it where I would think that waivers should have some real effect. You can't waive your right to sue for negligence. If someone drives a loader onto the track in the middle of a race, that's a risk you didn't consent to. But you should know what you're getting yourself into as far as what you're riding on. Go have a look at the track before signing. Don't like it, don't race. If you sign and then race, you've consented to the risk that you could crash and get landed on or hit because things happen fast.
I missed Truck's explanation and I'm sure he is knowledgeable on the subject. I have a niece in her last year of residency as an ER Doctor and I hate to think what she will see in the future. It would have to be traumatic to have someone young or old die even though you did everything correct and couldn't save them.
I have been on the announcing team at Mammoth for the last 8 or so years, I'm the long haired guy that's usually on the Hill.
I was calling this race, unfortunately that part of the track is out of our view due to the trees.
A few things I do know:
The flaggers at Mammoth are excellent. There are about 40 or more and they get briefed and assisted by Brett Downey foundation, they are rotated around and on tricky spots like the drop off by the booth there are more than one. Plus there are safety/emt folks working the track.
We knew he had gone down because when the leaders came into view out of that section he was not our front. At that point we could see folks going in the direction where he was, and then the medics were moving over there very quickly.
The racers on the track had a full practice day before the racing started and would have a very clear idea of what the race track would look like and they all lined up on the gate for the race.
I can't imagine the pain that they have endured losing a child and I don't want to sound disrespectful but I don't see how this was negligent. Racing is dangerous, my son broke his back at age 12, there is no way you can not know the danger exists.
No one is questioning the excellence of the flaggers that were on the track.
Why wasn’t there a flagger at arguably one of the most vulnerable sections of the track?
”After the initial crash, Aidan was conscious and attempting to get back to his feet. The race continued.
No caution flags were raised. No warnings were given to oncoming riders. Motorcycles continued to race at speed through the same section of the track while Aidan remained in harm’s way.
Aidan was struck after his fall. His racing gear showed visible impact damage, including a punctured chest protector. Despite life-saving efforts, he was later pronounced dead at Mammoth Hospital.”
https://www.bbtrial.com/blog/breit-biniazan-files-wrongful-death-lawsuit-after-16-year-old-motocross-rider-dies-at-mammoth-lakes-race/
Sorry to hear about your son‘s broken back, but I’m willing to bet that the circumstances weren’t even remotely close to this. Did another rider land on him after he crashed on a section of the course without flaggers that would’ve otherwise prevented those riders from landing on him and breaking his back? Is that the precise circumstance that occurred with your son‘s broken back?
I can also see strong justification for suing Fox is their sponsored riders are required to wear those stupid fucking tampons around their chest as opposed to something more substantial because it looks better and it allows them to have all the fancy logos exposed on their jerseys.
This whole argument that motocross is inherently dangerous will ultimately do more harm than good. Willful ignorance generally does not result in anything positive.
The promoter told USA Today there was a flagger within 18 feet, do you think he's lying? I don't have any personal knowledge so I have no idea. The gopro videos posted in this thread show a flagger in the area but those weren't the moto in question so who knows.
Wow, I just read the section you added about Fox. I hope you have some intimate personal knowledge to be throwing an accusation like that out there. Did he really want to wear better protection and Fox said no?
Never underestimate the ability for greed to manipulate grief.
It’s not an assertion of fact, if that’s what you mean.
And yes, the promoter did claim there was a flagger within 18 feet of something, but this contradicts statements from the very racers on the track behind Aidan, who could not avoid hitting him. I’m guessing if there was a flagger, it was on the downside of the slope and out of view of any of the oncoming racers.
It’s one thing to exercise your free will and go out to risk danger on any given Sunday, but it’s an entirely different thing when you are participating in an organized event, which comes with an assumed level of safety.
Why have flaggers at all if we’re going to default to assumed risk and accepting the consequences of that risk?
So they were forced to race this event? The family didn’t have free will because it was an organized event? I’m so confused with this response
Well, he was technically a sponsored racer probably under contractual obligation to participate in specific events. So, for the sake of argument, yes, he was probably “forced” to be there.
He was also “forced” to wear the protective gear provided to him by his sponsors some of which barely meets minimum safety standards for chest protection. Some of their chest deflectors barely meet the minimum certifications for elbow pads and knee guards.
He was also forced to scramble off of the track to avoid getting hit, which proved unsuccessful due to circumstances out of his control but which should have been in place.
It’s a sport. An individual sport. Grow up.
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