Friday, January 13, 2006

Do me a favor, please...

...and go around your house and make sure there aren't any electrical appliances, like radios, for instance, anywhere near a bathtub or sink. Please.

Last week a young man of our acquaintance died when a radio fell into his tub.

He was in the Air Force. He had volunteered to risk his neck for total strangers. And he died in a silly household mishap.

That hurts.

Losing him would have been hard enough on those who loved him, however he died. But like this? There's definitely an added pain, an extra dose of confusion to it.

It seems such a waste.

It has resulted in some painfully awkward moments amongst people standing around talking about him. It's sometimes horribly difficult to discuss a death that seems to have been both pointless and avoidable.

Don't do that to the people who love you.

Do me (and your family) a favor, and go around your house and make sure there aren't any electrical appliances anywhere near a bathtub, hot tub, shower or sink. Please.

Thank you.

2 comments:

Bookworm said...

That's one of those things that seems so unlikely nowadays. It was a popular plot device in early British mystery novels, but one never thinks of it as a modern tragedy. I'm so sorry.

Kathryn Judson said...

Bookworm, I know exactly what you mean. Our first reaction to the news was along the lines of 'but nobody dies that way anymore.' It's funny how it strikes people that way, but that seems to be the most common reaction, at least among the people who are talking about it.

I think we're all used to living day in and day out with electrical appliances and never getting hurt, and sometimes we forget there are important safety rules. That warning labels have become fodder for jokes probably doesn't help much. (How can you take a warning label seriously when it has something like "Do not operate this device while sleeping" on it?)