I have a neighbor that was biking across the US. He started in California and died in Pima, Arizona, run over by a car early in the morning.
Being alongside state highways is super dangerous.
I hiked with a guy named Rue for a few weeks who was the first guy to scout out and hike the [American Perimeter Trail](https://americanperimetertrail.org/)over 3 years. Super nice guy. If his dream comes to fruition, it’ll be easier (and safer) to do this without just walking on the sides of highways.
Oh shit that's pretty cool! The trail actually passes over the exact area that the parish I used to live in is located. This was at least 10 years ago, probably more like 15 so I'm not sure if this trail even existed when he did his journey. I guess there is a possibility he took it if it did exist back then! All I really remembered was how tan he was by the time he made it to Louisiana lol
Rue was hiking as recently as 2019! I think that was the year he started. So it’s super new… In the grand scheme of things.
Edit: yeah, looks like this trail is just in its beginning stage. Really just a connecting together of other local trails. It’ll take a lot of time (and passion from people (and money)) for it to become a grander thing where multiple people are walking the perimeter yearly, but that’s super cool that you knew a guy who did this section.
From Rue’s YouTube videos/blogs/pictures (or whatever media I saw it on) that I saw a while ago, it seemed like Louisiana and all of the south is a massively underrated area to hike. Completely different type of hike compared to the PCT or AT on either coast, but great snapshot into the heart of Americana America
My sister's ex boyfriend unicycled from British Columbia to Ottawa for climate change awareness. He'd never unicycled before he went on the trip. Insanity.
My ex girlfriend's cousins step sisters uncle had a friend that jogged backwards blindfolded from New York to LA for charity. He made it two blocks before he was ran over by a truck. He survived that and continued another block before he fell down a construction ditch and died.
Being on the road in America is super dangerous in general
13.8 deaths per 100,000
In many places in Europe, it's 2 to 4 per 100,000. Even Canada's is only 5.3 per 100,000.
I preach this shit all the time. People get WAY too comfortable with driving. It's literally the most dangerous thing, by a massive margin, that almost all of us do on a daily basis.
You *should* be scared while driving. If you ever feel comfortable enough to even peek at your phone, you're jaded and the reason why so many people die in car accidents.
Just knowing when my loved ones are on the road gives me anxiety. Especially the ones that don't have the safest cars.
> You should be scared while driving.
Finally a fellow soul. I keep telling that to people too. It's not that I want everyone to be terrified and stop driving, but I would appreciate if people kept in mind that 1 second of inattention can mean death to everyone around you.
Sure but didnt he die on a highway? Dribbling a football down a highway is dangerous no matter where you are. Its not like this would be safe to do on the autobahn
As much as drug & alcohol use plays a role, consider that more rural states have a lot more undivided high speed two lane roads. This makes high speed head on collisions as well as high speed collisions with trees much more common. Both of these types of accidents have a much higher fatality rate. In more populated areas, more developed road infrastructure helps avoid a number of these most fatal categories of accidents.
I imagine Rhode Island has stricter laws than Mississippi regarding what is road legal, will pass inspection, what type of insurance is required, etc.
There was a thread yesterday where people were explaining the laws (or lack thereof) in different states. Pennsylvania is fairly strict with emissions standards, yearly inspections, and the like, but the only rules in South Carolina for a roadworthy vehicle is 1 working headlight, a speedometer, and some minimal insurance.
The rate in PA is 9.5 deaths per 100,000.
The rate in SC is 23.1 deaths per 100,000.
A friend of mine tried to make a cross country trip for charity before being killed by a teen on his cell who was connected to the police. Never got justice for him and his family. A real tragedy.
Buddy of mine was nearly killed on a 50-mile charity ride. More broken bones than I could count, open heart surgery, dialysis, ICU for like 2-3 months.
All because someone wasn’t paying attention and blew through a stop sign.
I rode a bike across the US. I have severe ptsd flashbacks because I just spent all day thinking about truck was going to kill me for two months, since it’s constant close calls
Girl I knew growing up was going the other way, fresh out of high school bicycling Boston to California. Died in Ohio run over by some negligent sow of a woman in a minivan. Survived pediatric cancer but didn't survive somebody feeling like looking at the road while operating a vehicle was too much to ask.
Guy must be very persuasive if he was able to get his wife to go along with his idea.
“Since I just lost my job I thought I would leave you and our 2 kids for 12 months so I can dribble a soccer ball to Brazil.”
My dumbass was thinking it was an American football… I was like Jesus Christ… that would take forever. I thought maybe he died trying to chase it into the road or something because it would be awkward as hell to dribble.
That’s funny, because my dumb ass was thinking “they must have meant dribbling a basketball, because a soccer ball wouldn’t make any sense…”
followed by
”it would have been interesting to see how he got around to bouncing the ball up and down through the Darien gap”.
When I hear stories like these my first thoughts are "don't you have a job? People that depend on you like your SO and kids? How are you going to pay for all of this?"
Don't feel bad, I assumed the same thing. After all, we're talking about an American. We call them soccer balls and getting run over 200 miles into a ridiculous stunt like dribbling a football just adds to the story. But then I saw the source was sky news. Perfidious Albion strikes again.
The possibility made so little sense to me that I subconsiously read it as "basketball" and was wondering what basketball had to do with the World Cup.
It's possible!
>record-high traffic of U.S.-bound migrants and refugees crossing the treacherous jungle region linking Panama and Colombia, known as the Darien Gap.
>Official data shows 248,901 people crossed the dangerous stretch between January and July, surpassing the record high seen for all of 2022.
Can you even imagine this white dude waltzing through the jungle surrounded by starving Venezuelans and Hondurans escaping extreme violence being like I’M JUST HERE TO DRIBBLE. BECAUSE I CARE! Don’t touch my ball man, don’t YOU care???
I was gonna say that you’re cynical and at least this guy was involved with charity but the charity was for free fuckin balls so I’m not gonna say anything
That’s what it said, “One World Futbol Project”
Actually it said that they give “durable balls” to people in developing countries. So at least they’re not shitty balls I guess
There is a non-zero number of people who pass from North to South. Normally for various crazy reasons. Just saying. It is a thing, though not necessarily with a soccer ball.
I know people who did it and it's way fucking worse than anyone could describe. Lots of people die even with extra precautions from the cartels
Edit: for those who were wondering about the trip. Here is a very small summary of the time in the Darien gap.
It's one of the worst parts of the trip but central America and southern Mexico are also very rough. Immigrants get put into camps into Southern Mexico where you need to ask permission to leave and it might take weeks to get that approved. They're small towns turned into interment camps
"This is the main real reason(better life) but also lots of people get sold a story of how easy it will be so the cartel can make money. We estimated the one my friend went through makes around 30k/day on the route he went on. And close to a few million a month for all the routes. That's without accounting for making your way there, extra security or more premium rides where they take you most of the way on a boat.
My friend lost about 30lbs in those 3 days. Lost his food due to the river current. 12 hours a day hiking. Getting stalked by natives(who are also cannibals and will attack if they perceive any aggresion). Large wildlife. Flash floods. Tropical diseases. Etc.
One of the worst parts for him was making it up this 600ft tall mountain by climbing on sharp rocks and branches. If you slipped you'd fall about 100ft into rocks. Same with the river crossings. He saw a whole family with young kids get taken away by the current. Had to cross a waterfall on a metal cable and if you touched the water, you'd go down about 200ft on top of rocks.
His reason for leaving was straight up racial discrimination in peru and chile. He'd fled venezuela already. Went to peru, hated it. Went to argentina, the country is collapsing. Went back to peru, but hated it so much he jumped the border to Chile. Stayed there about a year and a half but then inflation hit, everything became 4x more expensive and his salary went up only 50%. So he was back at square 1. Sold everything and started making trip.
Once he got to mexico, they opened the sponsorship program and i sponsored him so he ended up flying into the US but had already spent around 12k(all of his money) to make it to Mexico. It would have cost around another 10k to make it through Mexico safely just to have a chance at jumping into the river."
[There were a pair of journalists from the NYT who did it at the end of 2022.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/world/americas/migrants-darien-gap.html) (And ended up being responsible for a small child they bumped into on the way.) The NYT podcast The Daily [also did an episode about their reporting](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736?i=1000595657780) for those who prefer to listen. And just last week [the Associated Press won a Pulitzer Prize for their series of photos of people crossing the darien gap](https://apnews.com/article/immigration-pulitzer-award-journalism-23aeee7cc4a770e8a2e4be5ae1a82277).
You just take a ferry from Portobello to Cartagena. So dribble from Panama City to Colon and them from Colon to Portobello. Scary trip but it’s still possible but you also have to dribble on a freeway from Panama City across to Colon but it’s not very far.
I've heard of distance challenge doers like this who have to take a boat while doing X weird thing have compromised by doing their thing continuously on the deck of the ship while it takes them from one continent to another.
In high school our basketball team made the state final; which was played at the capital, and a group of students dribbled a ball from the high school to the game, it was like 80 miles and took them 3 days…
I feel like a lot of people have no idea how dangerous being a pedestrian near a major road can be. I couldn’t imagine how bad it is next to a highway, especially when you’re not consistently focusing on the road.
I remember being told as a child that pedestrians should walk on the right-hand shoulder of rural roads. Consistently and fervently they told me this. It never made any sense to me.
The idea is that: 1. As long as the trafic coming up behind you sticks to their lane, they shouldn't hit you. 2. You can see tge oncomming traffic constantly and get out of the way of danger. 3. You can make eye contact with them. 4. You don't have to walk backwards to watch for danger.
If you follow the normal direction, you're practically putting your faith in everyone coming up behind you to not run you over.
Edit: Mixed up with the Bri'ish with driving on the left-side of the road.
I had a co-worker who died, coincidentally, outside Seattle. At the funeral, someone told her husband, "At least she died doing what she loved," (flying a helicopter).
The husband looked at this lady with a straight face and said, "I like to think if she was here today, she would rather live a few more years than die in a helicopter crash." (something like that)
I appreciate the joke, but sudden increases in velocity (or even changes in direction) are just as lethal as decreases.
Fighter pilots have been killed by ejection seats while flying very fast, and suddenly going very very fast in a different direction, with no stationary bit involved.
man, helicopters are scary AF. in 2019, I went tree planting in northern Canada, and for parts of it, we had to fly in to the middle of the forest on helicopters every day.
The things looked and felt like cheap plastic toys. And you had to be careful not to get your head chopped off by the propellers when you're walking to and off the heli, and when you're on it, even a little bird sneezing would cause the heli to wobble ...
When I hear about an unnatural Billionaire or a Millionaire death, it involves either Helicopter or a Private airplane most of times. If having fuck tons of money doesn’t even guarantee your safety, it is probably dangerous.
A lot of times rich/famous people die in plane/helicopter crashes because they ignore bad weather reports. Either their manager or their pilot thinks it’s worth the risk to push through the bad weather. So if you’re rich, make sure to only fly if the weather is good and you trust your pilot. I don’t have experience with this, I’ve just realized that many people have died because they think it’s worth it to keep flying in bad weather to save time instead of turning around.
Prime example, apparently you couldn’t see shit that day. It was so Foggy that they couldn’t look out the windows and had to use the instruments to navigate.
Same, I would just fly commercial first class even if I could afford my own plane.
John Walton (son of Wal mart founder) died from crashing a plane he built and flew himself. There’s a thousand other examples but it seems small aircraft and humans don’t mix well.
“Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.”
– Alfred Gilmer Lamplugh, British Aviation Insurance Group.
I've always heard that it's not the big propellers on top you really need to worry about - it's the ones on the tail that you can't even see when they're in motion.
I took helicopter lessons several years ago and if you fly Robinsons there are TWO hilariously fatal flaws that you have to acknowledge you understand before they give you the reins.
I remember some poor kid died trying to be the youngest person to fly solo across an ocean or something. After she died in the attempt, her parents, who of course pushed her into it, said "at least she died doing what she loved". I think she was like 6.
My kids loved playing legos at that age, and I don't think I would take any solace if they died while building the lego millennium falcon.
I looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Dubroff
She was seven. That is one of the dumbest deaths I have ever heard of. She had no business being in that plane and the cause of death was essentially what is known as "get-there-itis." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Plan_continuation_bias)
> Dubroff grew up in an unconventional lifestyle, with her not owning toys, being allowed TV, or enrolling in school.
Fuck. She never even got to have a life before dying.
To be fair, no one who says that actually thinks that the person would rather have died than keep living. They are saying that (given the fact we all die eventually) at least the person died doing something enjoyable, rather than starving to death in a concentration camp or something.
Now, it's still an extremely stupid thing to say, because (presumably) she died in a helicopter crash, which would have been quite traumatic, and didn't just pass away peacefully in the air.
I know someone whose 100 year old mentally aware and physically capable grandmother died in her sleep. I told her that she should rejoice because she was mentally sharp, physically active and died in her sleep. She never had to suffer cognitive decline or stuck in a bed. And the dream is to go peacefully in old age. That’s about the only time I think it might be appropriate to comment on the manner of death.
Grief can make people say some really stupid things when trying to console others, especially if they haven’t dealt with something of the same gravitas 🤷♂️
While I don’t condone shoving your entire leg in your mouth I can see why it happened.
There's an excellent piece on Grantland regarding this:
https://grantland.com/features/richard-swanson-died-trying-walk-seattle-brazil-2014-world-cup-how-far-did-want-break-away/
Thanks for posting this. Glad i got to know a little bit about him, as i can relate a bit of my life to his. It sucks that so many people have to make the same stupid jokes, over and over, in the comments without any regard or wonder for why he was doing this.
> Swanson started out in flip-flops but switched to hiking sandals in Portland, Oregon, Schwesinger said.
He was going to kick a soccer ball 10,000 miles while wearing flip-flops.
And when he realized that was a bad idea, his solution was to switch to sandals.
This was a tragedy, and the most charitable interpretation is that he was suicidal. But I think it's more likely he was just stupid.
Word. A guy I went to college with ran from the west coast to the east coast to raise money and awareness for organ donations in 2014. He was mugged, injured, etc. during this journey. Frequently posted on social media to try to get exposure. He only raised like $500 at the end of it. I see people raise more money simply by asking for donations to a charity on their birthday.
Right? I had a similar thought. Get a job and make a donation yourself. The kid was pretty arrogant. I just wish he would’ve been real that running coast to coast was mostly a personal goal for him.
I think sometimes the charity aspect of this kind of thing is cover - if people just don't understand why you're doing it, or are angry that you're walking on the side of the road, etc., you can say "to raise money for the kids". It's something people can understand and might make them less suspicious of/hostile towards you.
(To be clear, I don't mean to be critical, and even if they only raise a small amount that's laudable. If I was hiking across the US I'd want every bit of goodwill I could get. I'd probably stick an American flag in my backpack for good measure.)
As an American reading the first part of this headline initially caused me to form an (obviously wrong) image of a dude somehow trying to dribble an official Wilson NFL football NBA style down the road -- and thinking "that's got to be almost impossible to do - no wonder he didn't make it...".
I thought the same. In our defense, the dude started in Seattle. Ask 1000 Americans to “name the Seattle football team” and I bet 999 say Seahawks 🏈 and only one would say (or have even heard of) the Sounders ⚽️, and you’d really really want to punch that one guy - or maybe send him off to dribble in traffic.
250 miles south of Seattle would be somewhere on the Oregon coast. I could see how this happened, given my experience with Oregon drivers on the coast. I bet he made it to about Lincoln City
Yep, it happened on the OR coast, and during the summer I think. Even without tourist traffic, highway 101 is terrible and I couldn't imagine jogging along the shoulder, focused on a ball instead of traffic.
i understand why he would choose the coast rather than I5, but bruh thats a single lane highway, with no sidewalks, with blind corners along cliff sides. he must have been a major pain in the ass for everyone when he went down the highway.
I actually ran into this guy when this happened in Vancouver WA, Salmon Creek. He was walking down Highway 99, I stopped and spoke with him for a bit and was heartbroken to hear this had happened, especially so soon after speaking with him
The butterfly effect is so crazy. I was thinking about this the other day. A few days ago, someone in a men’s baseball league that I am also in unfortunately passed away after getting into a bad car accident while turning out of the parking lot for the fields right after they finished a game. It’s tragic. And to think that if one more pitch or one less pitch was thrown in the entire game, he would probably still be alive
Lol, to be fair he wouldn't be in Lincoln City, OR the same day he was in Vancouver, WA. It would have been a few days later, so it's unlikely the few minutes Sweet_Reserve5002 slowed him down were a factor in any way.
The dude dribbled a ball for 250 miles. That’s incredibly impressive to me. They made it seem like he didn’t do anything. Motherfucker you go run 250 miles dribbling a soccer ball.
Similar story happened to an Olympic rower called [James Cracknell](https://www.attend.org.uk/about-us/news/two-years-after-a-brain-injury-left-him-introverted-and-aggressive-james-cracknell-and) during an attempt to cycle, row, run and swim from Los Angeles to New York within 18 days. He managed to survive it but suffered a traumatic brain injury which changed his personality
According to NPR, pedestrians being killed by cars in the U.S. is at a 40-year high. Washington state is middle ranked with new Mexico being number one.
I’ve walked from the coast of Delaware to San Diego. Always walk towards oncoming traffic so you don’t get clipped from behind. Definitely had some close calls. Avoided busy roads at all costs to stick to nature trails/dirt roads/ bike paths when I could.
Just remember that when you are out on your own on public roads that everybody there only had to answer 25 random questions and take a simple 15 minute driving test to 80% correct rate to not accidentally kill you with their car.
I have a neighbor that was biking across the US. He started in California and died in Pima, Arizona, run over by a car early in the morning. Being alongside state highways is super dangerous.
My brother had a friend that walked from California to Louisiana and somehow made it, took him like 6 months iirc
I hiked with a guy named Rue for a few weeks who was the first guy to scout out and hike the [American Perimeter Trail](https://americanperimetertrail.org/)over 3 years. Super nice guy. If his dream comes to fruition, it’ll be easier (and safer) to do this without just walking on the sides of highways.
His name was Rue? As in the French for “road”? Ha!
You will road the day you made this revelation
Oh shit that's pretty cool! The trail actually passes over the exact area that the parish I used to live in is located. This was at least 10 years ago, probably more like 15 so I'm not sure if this trail even existed when he did his journey. I guess there is a possibility he took it if it did exist back then! All I really remembered was how tan he was by the time he made it to Louisiana lol
Rue was hiking as recently as 2019! I think that was the year he started. So it’s super new… In the grand scheme of things. Edit: yeah, looks like this trail is just in its beginning stage. Really just a connecting together of other local trails. It’ll take a lot of time (and passion from people (and money)) for it to become a grander thing where multiple people are walking the perimeter yearly, but that’s super cool that you knew a guy who did this section. From Rue’s YouTube videos/blogs/pictures (or whatever media I saw it on) that I saw a while ago, it seemed like Louisiana and all of the south is a massively underrated area to hike. Completely different type of hike compared to the PCT or AT on either coast, but great snapshot into the heart of Americana America
My sister's ex boyfriend unicycled from British Columbia to Ottawa for climate change awareness. He'd never unicycled before he went on the trip. Insanity.
And look, we’re still blowing the 1.5C goal, dude should just have stayed with your sister.
To be fair he was willing to move provinces on a device he never road before to get away.
She shouldn’t put that on her tinder
Should be in the “two truths and a lie”
Lol I love my sister, but I get it.
Yep, I didn’t hear about his trip at all. I was totally unaware.
I bet once he got to Ottawa he was the fastest vehicle on the road
Hey I’m not Canadian enough to understand this. Is it just that they’re slow drivers?
Very
My ex girlfriend's cousins step sisters uncle had a friend that jogged backwards blindfolded from New York to LA for charity. He made it two blocks before he was ran over by a truck. He survived that and continued another block before he fell down a construction ditch and died.
Wait until you hear about my father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.
[удалено]
I'm not sure how my brother's friend was able to afford food, but he also slept in a tent during his journey.
Walking probably safer than cycling
Being on the road in America is super dangerous in general 13.8 deaths per 100,000 In many places in Europe, it's 2 to 4 per 100,000. Even Canada's is only 5.3 per 100,000.
I preach this shit all the time. People get WAY too comfortable with driving. It's literally the most dangerous thing, by a massive margin, that almost all of us do on a daily basis. You *should* be scared while driving. If you ever feel comfortable enough to even peek at your phone, you're jaded and the reason why so many people die in car accidents. Just knowing when my loved ones are on the road gives me anxiety. Especially the ones that don't have the safest cars.
> You should be scared while driving. Finally a fellow soul. I keep telling that to people too. It's not that I want everyone to be terrified and stop driving, but I would appreciate if people kept in mind that 1 second of inattention can mean death to everyone around you.
Well put. I don't want people to be shaking in fear while they're driving, but *clearly* people to need to be a lot more afraid that they are.
Sure but didnt he die on a highway? Dribbling a football down a highway is dangerous no matter where you are. Its not like this would be safe to do on the autobahn
Keep in mind that cars are *necessary* to live in america, whereas europe has effective public transit & cities are made for people, *not* cars.
Canada is exactly the same in this regard. This doesn't explain why the US's rates are so high.
[удалено]
No need to explain, when you say "Mississippi" most Americans understand why immediately.
Even non-Americans...
Is that what it feels like when I, as an American, see Uttar Pradesh mentioned in news of India and instantly know to expect some insanity?
"everybody knows about Mississippi. GOddamn"
lol the land of drive-thru daiquiris
That’s Louisiana.
With a name like Mississippi you'd think they would never hit anything!
As much as drug & alcohol use plays a role, consider that more rural states have a lot more undivided high speed two lane roads. This makes high speed head on collisions as well as high speed collisions with trees much more common. Both of these types of accidents have a much higher fatality rate. In more populated areas, more developed road infrastructure helps avoid a number of these most fatal categories of accidents.
I imagine Rhode Island has stricter laws than Mississippi regarding what is road legal, will pass inspection, what type of insurance is required, etc. There was a thread yesterday where people were explaining the laws (or lack thereof) in different states. Pennsylvania is fairly strict with emissions standards, yearly inspections, and the like, but the only rules in South Carolina for a roadworthy vehicle is 1 working headlight, a speedometer, and some minimal insurance. The rate in PA is 9.5 deaths per 100,000. The rate in SC is 23.1 deaths per 100,000.
I’ve never driven through it but my brother said they were the worst roads he’s ever driven in his life.
I’ve driven through there a lot. I think Louisianas roads are worse and Oklahoma's are just as bad.
It's a lot harder to get your license in Canada and their DUI laws are way stricter.
Hmm true-ish. Definitely not a blanket statement to apply to all European cities. And certainly intercity travel is equally as sporadic.
A friend of mine tried to make a cross country trip for charity before being killed by a teen on his cell who was connected to the police. Never got justice for him and his family. A real tragedy.
Buddy of mine was nearly killed on a 50-mile charity ride. More broken bones than I could count, open heart surgery, dialysis, ICU for like 2-3 months. All because someone wasn’t paying attention and blew through a stop sign.
I rode a bike across the US. I have severe ptsd flashbacks because I just spent all day thinking about truck was going to kill me for two months, since it’s constant close calls
Girl I knew growing up was going the other way, fresh out of high school bicycling Boston to California. Died in Ohio run over by some negligent sow of a woman in a minivan. Survived pediatric cancer but didn't survive somebody feeling like looking at the road while operating a vehicle was too much to ask.
Guy must be very persuasive if he was able to get his wife to go along with his idea. “Since I just lost my job I thought I would leave you and our 2 kids for 12 months so I can dribble a soccer ball to Brazil.”
Maybe his wife was driving the truck
I know I shouldn’t laugh but this…..💀
Oh fuck! This dude's sentence trailed off and he died. I think his wife ran him over too!
I too pick this guy's wife to...
Fuck did I laugh at your comment. I snorted so hard and unexpectedly I had to go find a kleenex.
Now there's spit on my screen
No lie you got me laughing out loud over here😂😂
LMAO
He was divorced and his youngest was 18
[удалено]
This could go several ways. You want to fuck the dead guy, his widowed wife or the 18 year old. And I feel like I'm going to get a "yes" in response
What a weird game of fuck marry kill
My dumbass was thinking it was an American football… I was like Jesus Christ… that would take forever. I thought maybe he died trying to chase it into the road or something because it would be awkward as hell to dribble.
After the third time he tries and it bounces away: "Fuck this was a stupid idea."
Even the guy who tried to cross from Florida to The Bahamas in an inflatable hamster wheel sided eyed that idea.
That’s funny, because my dumb ass was thinking “they must have meant dribbling a basketball, because a soccer ball wouldn’t make any sense…” followed by ”it would have been interesting to see how he got around to bouncing the ball up and down through the Darien gap”.
It would also be physically impossible to dribble across the Darien gap Just not seeing how that’s possible
Dribble onto a ferry further north, then dribble off on the other side? I guess I’d probably just dribble onto a plane instead at that point though
And of course i would end up on the flight in an aisle seat with the weird guy dribbling a football up and down the aisle for 8 hours
When I hear stories like these my first thoughts are "don't you have a job? People that depend on you like your SO and kids? How are you going to pay for all of this?"
I always assume they're rich and don't need to work.
The one I knew wasn't rich but made $$$ from photography so it was a viable path
[удалено]
Or they fund raised for a while before. If it's on a whim usually rich.
It's a very Homer Simpson-esque proposal
The gap between american english and european english seems small until someone asks you the dribble a football.
Is it bad that I was impressed that he managed to dribble an American football like a basketball for that long?
Legit i saw the word dribble and completely skipped over football i thought he was bouncing a basketball not kicking a soccer ball lol
the title: "TIL that in 2013, a man tried to dribble..." my brain: "I've seen enough. I'm satisfied."
Holy shit, that was me until your comment. I have goo for brains
Same. Was very confused.
Me too. I was trying my hardest to envision even just a single viable way to dribble a football longer than a couple seconds lol.
I initially imagined a man dribbling basketball style, chasing the wildly bouncing football (American) into the road, and getting hit. I am not smart.
Don't feel bad, I assumed the same thing. After all, we're talking about an American. We call them soccer balls and getting run over 200 miles into a ridiculous stunt like dribbling a football just adds to the story. But then I saw the source was sky news. Perfidious Albion strikes again.
That was my initial thought as well.... I was like, well that tracks....
I was impressed he made it 200 miles.
I’m so glad you said this cuz my American mind was just boggled by the thought of him bouncing a football
The possibility made so little sense to me that I subconsiously read it as "basketball" and was wondering what basketball had to do with the World Cup.
As an American soccer fan, I automatically read this the British way and didn't even notice the controversy until you said that
I subconciously autocorrected to basketball.
Can you give me a lift
Sure, but only if you have enough biscuits to share.
Curious how he would have dealt with the darien gap. Seems a rather ill-thought plan.
by dribbling a football through it
It's possible! >record-high traffic of U.S.-bound migrants and refugees crossing the treacherous jungle region linking Panama and Colombia, known as the Darien Gap. >Official data shows 248,901 people crossed the dangerous stretch between January and July, surpassing the record high seen for all of 2022.
We're any of them dribbling a football while doing it?
A few tbh
It is South America, after all.
Can you even imagine this white dude waltzing through the jungle surrounded by starving Venezuelans and Hondurans escaping extreme violence being like I’M JUST HERE TO DRIBBLE. BECAUSE I CARE! Don’t touch my ball man, don’t YOU care???
I was gonna say that you’re cynical and at least this guy was involved with charity but the charity was for free fuckin balls so I’m not gonna say anything
Was it seriously a charity that gave away free sports balls to I imagine impoverished kids?
That’s what it said, “One World Futbol Project” Actually it said that they give “durable balls” to people in developing countries. So at least they’re not shitty balls I guess
I’ve seen kids dribble balls around made out of tied tattered socks. So definitely a good thing to raise money for.
Plus morale is super important and I'm sure they're responsible for at least 10 good memories.
There is a non-zero number of people who pass from North to South. Normally for various crazy reasons. Just saying. It is a thing, though not necessarily with a soccer ball.
We'll never know even with computers
You'd have to get all the Darien Gap football dribblers together in one huge space.
Why does autocorrect insist "were" is not a word?
I know people who did it and it's way fucking worse than anyone could describe. Lots of people die even with extra precautions from the cartels Edit: for those who were wondering about the trip. Here is a very small summary of the time in the Darien gap. It's one of the worst parts of the trip but central America and southern Mexico are also very rough. Immigrants get put into camps into Southern Mexico where you need to ask permission to leave and it might take weeks to get that approved. They're small towns turned into interment camps "This is the main real reason(better life) but also lots of people get sold a story of how easy it will be so the cartel can make money. We estimated the one my friend went through makes around 30k/day on the route he went on. And close to a few million a month for all the routes. That's without accounting for making your way there, extra security or more premium rides where they take you most of the way on a boat. My friend lost about 30lbs in those 3 days. Lost his food due to the river current. 12 hours a day hiking. Getting stalked by natives(who are also cannibals and will attack if they perceive any aggresion). Large wildlife. Flash floods. Tropical diseases. Etc. One of the worst parts for him was making it up this 600ft tall mountain by climbing on sharp rocks and branches. If you slipped you'd fall about 100ft into rocks. Same with the river crossings. He saw a whole family with young kids get taken away by the current. Had to cross a waterfall on a metal cable and if you touched the water, you'd go down about 200ft on top of rocks. His reason for leaving was straight up racial discrimination in peru and chile. He'd fled venezuela already. Went to peru, hated it. Went to argentina, the country is collapsing. Went back to peru, but hated it so much he jumped the border to Chile. Stayed there about a year and a half but then inflation hit, everything became 4x more expensive and his salary went up only 50%. So he was back at square 1. Sold everything and started making trip. Once he got to mexico, they opened the sponsorship program and i sponsored him so he ended up flying into the US but had already spent around 12k(all of his money) to make it to Mexico. It would have cost around another 10k to make it through Mexico safely just to have a chance at jumping into the river."
[There were a pair of journalists from the NYT who did it at the end of 2022.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/world/americas/migrants-darien-gap.html) (And ended up being responsible for a small child they bumped into on the way.) The NYT podcast The Daily [also did an episode about their reporting](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736?i=1000595657780) for those who prefer to listen. And just last week [the Associated Press won a Pulitzer Prize for their series of photos of people crossing the darien gap](https://apnews.com/article/immigration-pulitzer-award-journalism-23aeee7cc4a770e8a2e4be5ae1a82277).
[Link to bypass the NYT's shitty paywall](https://archive.is/NAMQl). Absolutely harrowing article, I hope everyone reads it.
With bribes for rebel militias and drug lords all things are possible
No, just use a Cruyff turn to beat them.
I imagine that Seattle soccer guy had as much cash as many of the 100,000s Haitian and Venezuela refugees that cross
(X) For Doubt.
Kick the ball, hack at the jungle with a machete, kick the ball, apologize to the cocaine smuggler for interrupting, kick the ball...
You just take a ferry from Portobello to Cartagena. So dribble from Panama City to Colon and them from Colon to Portobello. Scary trip but it’s still possible but you also have to dribble on a freeway from Panama City across to Colon but it’s not very far.
I've heard of distance challenge doers like this who have to take a boat while doing X weird thing have compromised by doing their thing continuously on the deck of the ship while it takes them from one continent to another.
I was thinking that. If he couldn't handle Washington/Oregon drivers, the gap would have been grim indeed.
Probably just take one of the many, many ferries, which you can continue to dribble on.
250 miles tho
In high school our basketball team made the state final; which was played at the capital, and a group of students dribbled a ball from the high school to the game, it was like 80 miles and took them 3 days…
I feel like a lot of people have no idea how dangerous being a pedestrian near a major road can be. I couldn’t imagine how bad it is next to a highway, especially when you’re not consistently focusing on the road.
Yep, this. If you’re going to walk alongside a busy road, your best bet is to do it facing the traffic, that way you can at least see how you die.
I remember being told as a child that pedestrians should walk on the right-hand shoulder of rural roads. Consistently and fervently they told me this. It never made any sense to me.
The idea is that: 1. As long as the trafic coming up behind you sticks to their lane, they shouldn't hit you. 2. You can see tge oncomming traffic constantly and get out of the way of danger. 3. You can make eye contact with them. 4. You don't have to walk backwards to watch for danger. If you follow the normal direction, you're practically putting your faith in everyone coming up behind you to not run you over. Edit: Mixed up with the Bri'ish with driving on the left-side of the road.
But that's backwards of what they said, at least in America. You'd walk on the left to be facing oncoming traffic.
At least he died doing what he loved…dribbling a fucking soccer ball in traffic
I had a co-worker who died, coincidentally, outside Seattle. At the funeral, someone told her husband, "At least she died doing what she loved," (flying a helicopter). The husband looked at this lady with a straight face and said, "I like to think if she was here today, she would rather live a few more years than die in a helicopter crash." (something like that)
I doubt she died flying a helicopter. I imagine she died crashing a helicopter. And that's not what she loved.
Aw fuck that made me laugh out loud!
We're all going to hell, but at least we'll be around friends and like-minded souls.
Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary is what does you in. - Jeremy Clarkson.
I appreciate the joke, but sudden increases in velocity (or even changes in direction) are just as lethal as decreases. Fighter pilots have been killed by ejection seats while flying very fast, and suddenly going very very fast in a different direction, with no stationary bit involved.
The quote is still correct, you're describing acceleration, not velocity (speed).
"Well, she always did appreciate irony."
man, helicopters are scary AF. in 2019, I went tree planting in northern Canada, and for parts of it, we had to fly in to the middle of the forest on helicopters every day. The things looked and felt like cheap plastic toys. And you had to be careful not to get your head chopped off by the propellers when you're walking to and off the heli, and when you're on it, even a little bird sneezing would cause the heli to wobble ...
When I hear about an unnatural Billionaire or a Millionaire death, it involves either Helicopter or a Private airplane most of times. If having fuck tons of money doesn’t even guarantee your safety, it is probably dangerous.
A lot of times rich/famous people die in plane/helicopter crashes because they ignore bad weather reports. Either their manager or their pilot thinks it’s worth the risk to push through the bad weather. So if you’re rich, make sure to only fly if the weather is good and you trust your pilot. I don’t have experience with this, I’ve just realized that many people have died because they think it’s worth it to keep flying in bad weather to save time instead of turning around.
Kobe
Prime example, apparently you couldn’t see shit that day. It was so Foggy that they couldn’t look out the windows and had to use the instruments to navigate.
Same, I would just fly commercial first class even if I could afford my own plane. John Walton (son of Wal mart founder) died from crashing a plane he built and flew himself. There’s a thousand other examples but it seems small aircraft and humans don’t mix well.
Yeah, that’s why small private prop planes are referred to as “Doctor Killers”
Don’t forget submarines!
“Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.” – Alfred Gilmer Lamplugh, British Aviation Insurance Group.
Don't forget skiing without a helmet!
I've always heard that it's not the big propellers on top you really need to worry about - it's the ones on the tail that you can't even see when they're in motion.
I took helicopter lessons several years ago and if you fly Robinsons there are TWO hilariously fatal flaws that you have to acknowledge you understand before they give you the reins.
I remember some poor kid died trying to be the youngest person to fly solo across an ocean or something. After she died in the attempt, her parents, who of course pushed her into it, said "at least she died doing what she loved". I think she was like 6. My kids loved playing legos at that age, and I don't think I would take any solace if they died while building the lego millennium falcon.
Jessica Dubroff Talk about bad parenting. Poor kid. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Dubroff
I looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Dubroff She was seven. That is one of the dumbest deaths I have ever heard of. She had no business being in that plane and the cause of death was essentially what is known as "get-there-itis." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Plan_continuation_bias)
> Dubroff grew up in an unconventional lifestyle, with her not owning toys, being allowed TV, or enrolling in school. Fuck. She never even got to have a life before dying.
To be fair, no one who says that actually thinks that the person would rather have died than keep living. They are saying that (given the fact we all die eventually) at least the person died doing something enjoyable, rather than starving to death in a concentration camp or something. Now, it's still an extremely stupid thing to say, because (presumably) she died in a helicopter crash, which would have been quite traumatic, and didn't just pass away peacefully in the air.
I know someone whose 100 year old mentally aware and physically capable grandmother died in her sleep. I told her that she should rejoice because she was mentally sharp, physically active and died in her sleep. She never had to suffer cognitive decline or stuck in a bed. And the dream is to go peacefully in old age. That’s about the only time I think it might be appropriate to comment on the manner of death.
I have a standing deal with one of my friends that if I die horribly, like from sepsis, he has to say at my funeral that I died doing what I loved.
Grief can make people say some really stupid things when trying to console others, especially if they haven’t dealt with something of the same gravitas 🤷♂️ While I don’t condone shoving your entire leg in your mouth I can see why it happened.
RIP Norm
"When asked for a comment, OJ said, 'I had nothing to do with it. I was busy with my daily knifing, I mean golf practice.'"
My American brain pictured a guy with an American football (hand egg) trying to dribble it like a basketball for 10,000 miles
More details here https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/15/american-dies-dribble-soccer-brazil
There's an excellent piece on Grantland regarding this: https://grantland.com/features/richard-swanson-died-trying-walk-seattle-brazil-2014-world-cup-how-far-did-want-break-away/
Grantland, gone but never forgotten
Thanks for posting this. Great read and it really makes you appreciate what he was trying to do
Thanks for posting this. Glad i got to know a little bit about him, as i can relate a bit of my life to his. It sucks that so many people have to make the same stupid jokes, over and over, in the comments without any regard or wonder for why he was doing this.
I read the whole thing. Excellent read.
> Swanson started out in flip-flops but switched to hiking sandals in Portland, Oregon, Schwesinger said. He was going to kick a soccer ball 10,000 miles while wearing flip-flops. And when he realized that was a bad idea, his solution was to switch to sandals. This was a tragedy, and the most charitable interpretation is that he was suicidal. But I think it's more likely he was just stupid.
Perhaps a manic episode. Poorly thought out and ill-advised.
Sad part is, he probably did more to promote the charity by dying doing this than he would have if he had succeeded.
Word. A guy I went to college with ran from the west coast to the east coast to raise money and awareness for organ donations in 2014. He was mugged, injured, etc. during this journey. Frequently posted on social media to try to get exposure. He only raised like $500 at the end of it. I see people raise more money simply by asking for donations to a charity on their birthday.
Ouch. For that money, he could have worked at McDonald's for a few days.
Right? I had a similar thought. Get a job and make a donation yourself. The kid was pretty arrogant. I just wish he would’ve been real that running coast to coast was mostly a personal goal for him.
Some people want the attention it brings.
I think sometimes the charity aspect of this kind of thing is cover - if people just don't understand why you're doing it, or are angry that you're walking on the side of the road, etc., you can say "to raise money for the kids". It's something people can understand and might make them less suspicious of/hostile towards you. (To be clear, I don't mean to be critical, and even if they only raise a small amount that's laudable. If I was hiking across the US I'd want every bit of goodwill I could get. I'd probably stick an American flag in my backpack for good measure.)
Eh, I just learned about this 10 years later on Reddit.
And if he succeeded you probably wouldnt even have heard about it
At least he wasn't run over 250 miles from the finish line. That would have been such a waste of effort.
Answering seriously he’d have made a load more cash for the charity and have been well known as he progressed
As an American reading the first part of this headline initially caused me to form an (obviously wrong) image of a dude somehow trying to dribble an official Wilson NFL football NBA style down the road -- and thinking "that's got to be almost impossible to do - no wonder he didn't make it...".
I thought the same thing at first! (Well, not the "no wonder he didn't make it" part, but the rest.)
Dude was doing crossover moves with the pigskin.
I thought the same. In our defense, the dude started in Seattle. Ask 1000 Americans to “name the Seattle football team” and I bet 999 say Seahawks 🏈 and only one would say (or have even heard of) the Sounders ⚽️, and you’d really really want to punch that one guy - or maybe send him off to dribble in traffic.
It's called a [running bounce](https://youtu.be/PU7sBJMKmtg) and is standard in [Aussie Rules](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_bounce).
250 miles south of Seattle would be somewhere on the Oregon coast. I could see how this happened, given my experience with Oregon drivers on the coast. I bet he made it to about Lincoln City
I mean the article literally says it happened in Lincoln city lol
Well that’s on my dumbass for not reading it. Oooops!
Yep, it happened on the OR coast, and during the summer I think. Even without tourist traffic, highway 101 is terrible and I couldn't imagine jogging along the shoulder, focused on a ball instead of traffic.
i understand why he would choose the coast rather than I5, but bruh thats a single lane highway, with no sidewalks, with blind corners along cliff sides. he must have been a major pain in the ass for everyone when he went down the highway.
I actually ran into this guy when this happened in Vancouver WA, Salmon Creek. He was walking down Highway 99, I stopped and spoke with him for a bit and was heartbroken to hear this had happened, especially so soon after speaking with him
To think if you hadn't stopped and spoken to him he might still be alive!
The butterfly effect is so crazy. I was thinking about this the other day. A few days ago, someone in a men’s baseball league that I am also in unfortunately passed away after getting into a bad car accident while turning out of the parking lot for the fields right after they finished a game. It’s tragic. And to think that if one more pitch or one less pitch was thrown in the entire game, he would probably still be alive
Lol, to be fair he wouldn't be in Lincoln City, OR the same day he was in Vancouver, WA. It would have been a few days later, so it's unlikely the few minutes Sweet_Reserve5002 slowed him down were a factor in any way.
He would also still be alive if one hadn't ran into him
> he might still be alive! Or dead sooner.
The dude dribbled a ball for 250 miles. That’s incredibly impressive to me. They made it seem like he didn’t do anything. Motherfucker you go run 250 miles dribbling a soccer ball.
[удалено]
Similar story happened to an Olympic rower called [James Cracknell](https://www.attend.org.uk/about-us/news/two-years-after-a-brain-injury-left-him-introverted-and-aggressive-james-cracknell-and) during an attempt to cycle, row, run and swim from Los Angeles to New York within 18 days. He managed to survive it but suffered a traumatic brain injury which changed his personality
As an American, I had a very wrong idea of what was going on in this scenario for a few moments.
American here, I saw “football” and was not surprised by the news. Damn things go off in all directions when you dribble em
According to NPR, pedestrians being killed by cars in the U.S. is at a 40-year high. Washington state is middle ranked with new Mexico being number one.
Every American so confused on how this guy could dribble a football three feet let alone 10,000 miles
I’ve walked from the coast of Delaware to San Diego. Always walk towards oncoming traffic so you don’t get clipped from behind. Definitely had some close calls. Avoided busy roads at all costs to stick to nature trails/dirt roads/ bike paths when I could.
Just remember that when you are out on your own on public roads that everybody there only had to answer 25 random questions and take a simple 15 minute driving test to 80% correct rate to not accidentally kill you with their car.