So a few weeks ago, a terrible tragedy happened in Italy when a cable car cable snapped, leading to disaster with the loss of 14 lives, and serious injuries for the one survivor: a 5 year old boy who has lost his mother, father, great grandparents, and 2 year old younger brother in the incident. Now awake from a coma and with only his aunt by his side, he is suffering post-traumatic amnesia and still no understanding of the tragedy.
A few days ago, Italy's public broadcaster Rai broadcasted leaked CCTV footage of the incident, to much criticism. This footage has now been shared extensively across other major media outlets and social media.
But I won't post a link here. It's beyond distressing to watch, in my opinion anyway. After seeing it in my Facebook feed, out of unfortunate curiosity I decided to watch, and with great regret.
Because what I expected to see was.. well not this. I expected a cable snapping and a cable car gondola in the distance falling instantly to the ground. That's not what happens at all.
The gondola is arriving at the station at the top of the mountain, you can see the families on board ready to disembark. At this point I think.. oh this is some prior stock footage of the cable car in its normal operation to set the scene. Right? No. The engineer is just about to open the door to let them out, everything looks totally normal. When suddenly the cable snaps, the gondola jolts backwards aggressively knocking everyone to the floor, at which point it flies back down the support lines for over 20 seconds at 60+mph because the emergency brakes had been disabled. Yes wtf. And then it hits the pylon, at which point you see the gondola fall to the mountain and go out of view. And we know what happens next as it rolled down the mountain.
But knowing they are in there, frightened for their lives at it hurtles back down the supporting cables for those 20 seconds, with children in there too. The footage is just too real, that you can see them through the window and everything looks so normal before disaster strikes. And honestly it's been on my mind constantly for the last few days. I can't stop thinking about the terror they must have felt and that poor 5 year old survivor who has lost his entire family.
It's just such a terrifying video. One that should certainly be shown to every cable car engineer that thinks it is a good idea to disable the emergency brakes.
But for the rest of us, no. I can't unsee it. Much like footage of the WTC, there are some things that stay with you forever. But these days, everything is captured, shared.
Have you watched "disaster" videos/footage that you really wish you hadn't? That you can't unsee. Did curiosity get the better of you? Has there been anything that has ended up engrained in your mind forever?
Note: This is not a thread to share such videos, just your experiences of how you have reacted to them.
A few days ago, Italy's public broadcaster Rai broadcasted leaked CCTV footage of the incident, to much criticism. This footage has now been shared extensively across other major media outlets and social media.
But I won't post a link here. It's beyond distressing to watch, in my opinion anyway. After seeing it in my Facebook feed, out of unfortunate curiosity I decided to watch, and with great regret.
Because what I expected to see was.. well not this. I expected a cable snapping and a cable car gondola in the distance falling instantly to the ground. That's not what happens at all.
The gondola is arriving at the station at the top of the mountain, you can see the families on board ready to disembark. At this point I think.. oh this is some prior stock footage of the cable car in its normal operation to set the scene. Right? No. The engineer is just about to open the door to let them out, everything looks totally normal. When suddenly the cable snaps, the gondola jolts backwards aggressively knocking everyone to the floor, at which point it flies back down the support lines for over 20 seconds at 60+mph because the emergency brakes had been disabled. Yes wtf. And then it hits the pylon, at which point you see the gondola fall to the mountain and go out of view. And we know what happens next as it rolled down the mountain.
But knowing they are in there, frightened for their lives at it hurtles back down the supporting cables for those 20 seconds, with children in there too. The footage is just too real, that you can see them through the window and everything looks so normal before disaster strikes. And honestly it's been on my mind constantly for the last few days. I can't stop thinking about the terror they must have felt and that poor 5 year old survivor who has lost his entire family.
It's just such a terrifying video. One that should certainly be shown to every cable car engineer that thinks it is a good idea to disable the emergency brakes.
But for the rest of us, no. I can't unsee it. Much like footage of the WTC, there are some things that stay with you forever. But these days, everything is captured, shared.
Have you watched "disaster" videos/footage that you really wish you hadn't? That you can't unsee. Did curiosity get the better of you? Has there been anything that has ended up engrained in your mind forever?
Note: This is not a thread to share such videos, just your experiences of how you have reacted to them.
