One death reported after storms leave thousands stranded at Burning Man | Hacker News Reader

One death reported after storms leave thousands stranded at Burning Man

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20 pointsfortran7720 comments

Recent and related:

No way in or out of Burning Man after storm - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37363674 - Sept 2023 (209 comments)

On playa now. Rangers say the death was related to someone servicing a generator in the rain. There were reports of multiple people being electrocuted out here, but only the one death.

I'm sorry to hear, that sucks. Having never been, I'm curious to hear about how the BM ethos of RSR/gift economy are showing up on the playa right now

Fools rush in, but no way out.

Correlation is not causation.

Well, I suppose the real news is that 70,000 people are stranded and the roads in/out are closed.

This IS the real noews. If the conditions don't improve markedly in the next day or two, it will start to really impact people.

The death is not out of the ordinary, and if anything should be a separate headline.

Normally you expect 2-3 deaths per day for a population that size. They are exceeding expectations.

What about a population with that size AND age distribution?

And current health issues. People will self select out of going if they are having serious illnesses, obviously, which leaves only freak accidents or accute illnesses, reducing the rate by a lot.

Most years see one death on the playa.

2010: A man died in his tent from carbon monoxide poisoning due to a propane heater.

2011: A woman died from injuries sustained in a tent fire.

2012: A man was found dead in his tent; the cause was not publicly disclosed.

2014: A woman was struck and killed by a bus carrying festival participants.

2015: A man died from a fall at his campsite.

2017: A man ran into a fire and died from burn injuries.

2018: A man was found unresponsive in his vehicle and later pronounced dead; the cause was not publicly disclosed.

2019: A death was reported, but the cause was not publicly disclosed.

> 2017: A man ran into a fire and died from burn injuries.

Incarnated: invested with bodily and especially human nature and form, made manifest or comprehensible: embodied.

All of the ones you shared that were disclosed were accidents, that was my point.

AND drug distribution

Maybe for the activity, but otherwise no. Twice as many people attend Disney World each day as go to burning man. Deaths are so rare (even from heart attack) there is a wikipedia of incidents.

I realize the parks are not open 24 hours, but given the age distribution I wouldn't expect a death without the unusual conditions and recreational drugs. Even sporting events, which are the same size and have lots of alcohol, rarely have deaths.

> Twice as many people attend Disney World each day as go to burning man. Deaths are so rare (even from heart attack) there is a wikipedia of incidents.

Burning Man or Disney World?

There's self-selection at both (and at sporting events), but also other factors: folks leave WDW or a football game after X hours and go home, or can easily leave WDW or a football game if they're feeling unwell. Not as true at Burning Man.

So, how many folks die on the same day they go to a football game? What is the rate of death of attendees of football games? Obviously, there will be factors other than "attended football game", but if we're going to compare deaths _at_ sporting events or _at_ a theme part, we should try our best to make it apples to apples.

Or rather, how many people die 1/ 7/ 30 days after attending Burning Man, compared to their age cohort?

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