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Vistex CEO Sanjay Shah dies on stage after freak accident
- evbogue 3y agoEvery time I'm in Schaumburg I remind myself that it's ok to be bored. Just go the mall. Shop at Ikea. Shopping is simple, it's easy, mostly doesn't end poorly. I might be tempted to perform elaborate stunts, but at what cost? We should remember that we're human during these strange economic times.
- yieldcrv 3y agogravity is not related to the macroeconomic environment
- unnouinceput 3y agono, but a chain's structural integrity is. you know, the lowest bidder and all that stuff
- steve1977 3y agoAnd gravitas is not related to gravity. You can make an impact without having to make an impact.
- scotty79 3y agoI don't think it's specific to Schaumburg. You wouldn't caught me dead 4 meters above ground in mobile temporary contraption anywhere. However you have very decent chance to find me on the couch in the closest Ikea. Not even buying. Just enjoying being alive.
- 15457345234 3y agoEven in this age of LED-everything their lighting section is still stellar You love to see it
- lolc 3y agoWhat does shopping offer to people who want to remember they're human? Go for a hike.
- evbogue 3y agoAlso good advice.
- talldatethrow 3y ago[flagged]
- nothercastle 3y ago[flagged]
- bdcravens 3y ago> part of the chain supporting the structure snapped I appreciate a good pun, but doing so when someone dies isn't a good look.
- zoky 3y agoWow, he died in pretty much the same way as Owen Hart…
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- djbusby 3y agoTragic way to go, on the job. We're all meant for more than the grind. Peace and love to the family. A(nother) reminder to hug yours.
- bdcravens 3y agoWhat's worse is it wasn't even part of the grind. (Such as something like traveling to a sales meeting would be) It was just a flashy entrance during a celebration.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kumarm 3y agoBased on new in Indian media, this happened at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad. CEO's wife had to make her own arrangements since they couldn't get an Ambulance for a long time. And Ramoji Film City is multi billion dollar property.
- kumarvvr 3y agoYeah, its in the outskirts of the main city(Hyderabad), and all the roads leading u pto it will be chock full of traffic 24/7. Good luck with that. In big cities, like the one this is in, the population / ambulances ratio if woefully inadequate.
- FlyingSnake 3y agoFor comparison, it is equivalent to Universal Studios in the USA. What an utter disgrace.
- eigenvalue 3y agoThey obviously should have had backup harnesses connected to something else on the ceiling. Whenever they do things like this in the US at concerts or shows they always have these things. And the chains obviously are supposed to be inspected and made much stronger than they need to be to give a big margin of error. Seems like a totally unnecessary accident that should have been avoided. Really tragic.
- jtriangle 3y agoRigging is usually a multiple of the load it experiences normally, depends on the locality. For something holding humans, 10x load plus harnesses is common. This was clearly under specced, and that's why we have spec for such things, to prevent this.
- jccooper 3y agoYep. Basic rigging procedures would have prevented this several ways.
- Brajeshwar 3y agoI know this is going to be voted down. I’m always scared of how things get done here in India -- not only because they are careless or trying to reduce cost -- but because of the utter lack of importance given to human lives. Unfortunately, with an overwhelmed legal system, most of us, especially ordinary people, cannot even pursue legal action when an accident happens. I’ve seen, heard, and experienced people doing their job just barely enough to reach a stage of “it works,” popularly known in the colloquial term as, “Chalta Hain.” This is more prominent in works such as the ad-hoc stage creation, pop-up kitchens, and the like. This incident is sad, and I hope people learn from it and will prevent the other 100 such accidents. My Condolences.
- shri_krishna 3y agoThis is true. Also equivalent to "Chalta hain" is "Jugaad". We really need to stop doing this. These short cuts/hacks are okay for when you don't have the means/resources available. Not when you have abundance. Doesn't make any sense whatsoever!
- jpgvm 3y agoIt's very hard to switch the mindset though. It becomes ingrained such that even when abundance is the new state of affairs scarcity still dominates the mind.
- disqard 3y agoCan confirm. I grew up in India and now live in the US. I regularly regress into a scarcity-oriented mindset (e.g. preventing all food wastage, avoiding spending on "nice-but-not-strictly-necessary" things, etc.). Even though this mindset is incongruous and inefficient for my present circumstances -- and I'm aware of it -- overcoming childhood programming about it is difficult. Old habits die hard, I guess.
- kumarvvr 3y agoI think the issue is more about greed. A qualified technician, to handle the rig, would cost X. A stage help would cost 0.1 X Indians are cheap and many in job roles are not qualified or care about their job. I am 100% sure that this sort of accident happens all the time, and some temporary workaround is used to repair the issue. Also, no one has any idea about anything close to a "safety margin". If I were on the job, as an engineer, I would make sure that the ropes and slings are atleast 100% more than calculated values.
- kumarvvr 3y agoThis is purely a systemic and cultural issue. As an engineer, I can say with full conviction that Indians don't give a damn about maintenance and maintainability. Be it software or hardware or services or what not. We tend to focus on completing the work for that moment. Also, in this particular case, the location is a studio, and more likely than not, you would not even find any records of maintenance / guidelines / qualified personnel.
- strikelaserclaw 3y agoModern Indian culture for a multitude of reasons isn't very philosophical, there is no such concept as doing good work for the sake of it, if it doesn't benefit ME in someway, i'll do the least amount to get away with it, that type of thinking is pervasive.
- kabigon 3y ago[flagged]
- jimmyed 3y agoThat's exactly what a Pakistani like you would say!
- dang 3y agoPlease don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 3y agoSlurs aren't allowed and we ban accounts that post them, so please don't do this again.
- idiot-savant 3y ago[flagged]
- ofcourseyoudo 3y agoThis is awful and sad and I would encourage people for the sake of their own humanity not to try to frame this into some kind of morality play or just world fallacy.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- coolandsmartrr 3y agoMeanwhile, I wonder if there's a better way to describe this event other than a "freak accident." "Freak" doesn't convey anything informative. Perhaps "stunt accident"?
- isuckatcoding 3y agoHmm maybe there’s less dangerous and less proud ways to celebrate. Apparently money does make people do stupid things.
- playcache 3y agoSometimes I scoff at the Health and Safety laws we have in the UK (It can get a little draconian sometimes), but then I look at what happens in a country where no such thing exists (or little application of it).
- vr46 3y agoHaving largely moved out of the UK to Germany, I can see that the UK has a care for human life and safety that is unrivalled so far. (Despite the literal shitshow of the last few years as water companies dump sewage) The UK has so much good design in all the systems where humans are concerned, from clear signage to walking surfaces, plus checks and balances to provide for redundancy, that you start taking it all for granted. India on the other hand - I'm of Indian heritage - is a chaotic hellscape where life is cheap. I have an apartment there and recently smooke started pouring out a water pump, somebody mentioned it on the Whatsapp group and eventually someone went to investigate and found it burnt out. You can see so many problems here: 1) Response time slow 2) Problem not treated urgently 3) No electrical cut out 4) No temperature cut out Basically the sort of thing that you would find sixty years ago in the UK, a malfunctioning device can simply carry on malfunctioning to the extent that it could cause a fire in an entire apartment block. The UK is not immune from this - see Grenfell fire where bad cladding caused many deaths - but we have a full-scale public inquiry and legislation and a lot of very pissed-off people in comparison.
- mongol 3y agoSometime between WW2 and now, human lives started to be valued significantly more. I have only a vague idea about this process. Was it continuous, or through several steps? I have a feeling that the invention of three point seat belts played a role, in showing that small measures can have huge impact. But when I grew up (Sweden in the 70s) seatbelts were only mandatory in the front seats, and me and my brother sat in the back seat without. I think this was common and not parental negligence at the time.
- vr46 3y agoYes, same in the UK, I grew up without seat belts and then in the 1980s, they became a thing - "clunk-click, every trip" - and then only much later, compulsory for rear passengers. It's step-by-step, building on top of the previous thing, slowly inculating into the population the respect for life and how it's the responsibility of every person, company and government. You belt up, cars add airbags, the government improves roads and traffic management. If all of those things are in place, things get better. In India, it's very much "god will protect me". My own attitude changes so bizarrely when I'm in India. In Europe it's belt up, put your helmet on, and in India, let's all get into this Autorickshaw and hurtle through traffic. I must be mad.
- Sai_ 3y agoIf memory serves, a well known rock band used to demand a candy but not of one specific color somewhere deep in their agreement with the equipment company. Their thinking was that if they find those specific candies in their dressing rooms, it means the riggers haven’t read the specs properly. I guess more people should start making these out of band requests to catch poorly managed events before a tragedy happens.
- Evidlo 3y agoVan Halen and Brown M&Ms https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2012/02/14/146880432/the-truth-about-van-halen-and-those-brown-m-ms https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2012/02/14/146880432/...
- 6R1M0R4CL3 3y agowill teach you not to stay at home working remote. enjoy that "get back to the office"
- testHN1ac 3y agoThis reminds me of the death of WWE wrestler Owen Hart. He fell when his harness malfunction during his entry to the ring. American Wrestler dies in America - WWE is a listed company. Reading all the comments about India, low pay and the value of life makes one wonder. The Post Office Scandal in the UK that's popular in HN shows the value of life and justice in UK. Pretty sure that everyone involved was well paid - the Post Office Heads, the Software company etc No one bothered to do the right thing. Is it the British culture ? The Engineers at Boeing surely are well paid and should have a 'culture of safety' and 'value human life'. But Boeing seems to be in news for safety issues that don't fit the American Engineering culture. Software issues that killed 346 people in 2 crashes in 2019 - Source Verge Boeing planes are still flying. Doors flying off now. Tesla - Keep reading comments about Tesla crashes and the lack of responsibility. Tesla keeps selling in record numbers. Other day read about Tesla employees spying on camera of customer's car. American love for Voyeurism. Can you call this lack of concern for safety a part of American culture ? Tesla and Boeing are Big Listed American companies. What's the issue here - lack of decent pay ? Or that Americans obviously don't value life considering how easily Americans take lives as per all the news that one reads. Point being blaming an accident like this on a certain people and their culture is easy. It's quite common to see this subtle racism on HN. Why are bigger incidents in other countries not a failure of their culture when these are done by bigger institutions and companies.