http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/7042945.stm I chewed pens too, but I always managed not to get them in my throat. It's sad for them their son passed on, especially in such a way, but still... what the fork.
We'll might as well ban the issuance of driver's licenses in Canada as well: almost 3000 highway deaths per year. That's like an annual 9/11.
At the age of 13 you should understand that you shouldn't swallow objects. This is what they call evolution. He was simply to stupid to live. (Yes, I'm cynical... Sue or ban me too!) People that want to ban everything that is potentially dangerous irritates me. I mean, everything COULD be dangerous in some way. You could potentially cut arteries with a sheet of paper or your bus ticket! Ban paper!
i agree with people here, it was a tragic accident. not many kids swallow pen lids, and out of the people who do im guessing most cough it up again. sure the family feels strongly,and my sympathys go out to them, but this isnt an issue really. just dont let ur kids alone with a pen :S
Evolution is the result of natural selection (more or less). I seen this yesterday, i'm sure nexxo will be happy to explain the grief coping mechanism this represents but ffs people you need to see a councilor not a mp
Its an accident they happen but for some reason people seem to forget they happen no matter what you do. This applies in most areas now not jsut swallowing pen lids. Although there was a quote of "the silent menace of pen lids" which I thought was a bit wild.
Keep things in proportion though... something like 170,000 people die every day worldwide, mostly of natural causes.
This was in keeping within the realm of bafflingly avertable tragedies. Natural causes for those daily 170 000 deaths are normally beyond the boundaries of preventability--if you were already dying of starvation and subsequently diseased because of nutritional deficiencies, eating a meal would not guarantee your complete recovery from an impending fatality. When a victim dies from choking on a pen cap (is anyone wondering how easily this kid could have been saved?) it shows that there are stupendously simple levels of survival that people obviously can't abide by...
My point was that you need to consider the scale. 3000 people per year dying of one cause is astonishingly small compared to over fifty times that number per day. Let me rephrase: human mortality rate is 100%. We have well over six Billion people in the world. According to your statistic, that puts your chance of death by car crash in Canada at under one in twenty million. Of course you have to consider worldwide statistics for that number to have any actual meaning, but it's still statistically an incredibly low number. One in ten thousand Canadians, or something around there, right? Why should the remaining 9,999/10,000 be forced to suffer because you've got a tenth of an idiot per capita? More relevant, why should the remaining 29,999,999 be forced to use screwy pens because some fool decided he was hungry and the only thing nearby was inedible? It almost seems like we're saying the same thing, just using different approaches to get there. We can use increasingly more depressing examples - but the only way to stop unnecessary deaths is to stop births. We can prevent births, and each and every single one results in an unnecessary death.
I would say it's the other way around, something mutates in some way (evolution) and then either survives or dies because of it (natural selection). Back on topic, this sounds idiotic to me, banning pen lids? WTF? If you're worried about your kid chocking on a pen lid, buy a clicky pen and allow everyone else to use whatever then they like. I chewed on pen tops my entire time through school and I'm still alive.
I nearly choked on a pen lid in school, managed to swallow it. I poo'ed it out a few days later. They didn't ask for it back.
Poisonous, you should have got it mounted like a trophy with a nice shiney brass plaque on it. Hmm, what quote to have on the brass plaque Everything is dangerous if used the right (wrong) way, how many people choke to death on food everyday?!... yer lets ban food! I almost choked to death on a lego man head when me and my cousin were firing them out of a tube like a blow pipe
Eh. nominate the kid for a darwin and move on. That, and give the parents the number of the RIAA Lawers / Jack Thompson's firm... they love all sorts of frivolus things.
