( Video )Motorcyclist who vanished into a sinkhole on Monday, found deceased after an 18-hour search. The man was seen riding his motorcycle on a road in Seoul, South Korea when a 65 feet wide and 65 feet deep sinkhole opened up.
The motorcyclist was identified by officials as a man in his 30s. First responders reportedly had to pump out water and dig through the dirt for 18 hours to find him. It’s unclear at the moment what caused the sinkhole.
On another site I saw more of that video that showed the pavement continuing to collapse into the hole and a water main gushing into it also. That poor guy didn’t stand a chance.
I also read that there is a new underground railway excavation in process in the area.
I’m still haunted by the sink hole in FL that swallowed up a man while he was sleeping in his bed in a suburban Tampa house. I had to scrub FL from consideration as a retirement location.
To me, sink holes are really spooky, kinda like when liberals are in charge.
Just another example of how no one is guarenteed the next five minutes.
That guy got up, got dressed, said see ya later to his loved ones, and went out riding to wherever, with plans for later that day, that week, that month, and that year.
All of which were swallowed into the ground along with him.
He did nothing wrong, he could not have forseen this; one minute EZ Rider, the next smashing into a surprisingly watery grave.
God pulls your number on HIS time, not yours. Sometimes He gives you some hints, and sometimes the ground just opens beneath your feet.
…some of you long-timers are probably familiar with my usual story about surprise death. One that really stuck with me was a very healthy 20 sonething that I met as a medic when he died suddenly while running down court at a midnight basketball game in the ’90s. We worked him, the hospital worked him, turned out it was all pointless as he blew out an aortic aneurism and was irretrevably dead before he face planted and slid so hard he rubbed the tip of his nose off.
This part Ive told before.
But weirdly, I just met him again through a friend of his, 30 years later, metaphorically speaking of course.
I only knew him as John Doe, his nonbreather status making further introductions impractical. But now I know his name.
I started working with a new guy, and one day someone else we were expecting didnt show up. Typical of my mordant sense of humor, I said maybe he died coming in. The new guy wasnt used to my graveyard whistling and questioned this, so I told him about a different guy who actually DID die coming to work there and only his frantic passenger kept it from being a multicar catastrophe. We just kinda shrugged and he saud yeah, I know guys who died young. This of course was my springboard to relate that story above. Unlike most people, he just started looking at me funny and said “Yeah, I has a buddy who died like that, playing basketball in that area, but that was 30 years ago so it couldnt be him”.
I hadnt told him THAT part.
So we started comparing places and it got weirder. I got a name from him and researched it, first finding his grave, then a newspaper article.
IT WAS THE SAME GUY. The place, the time, my old squad, everthing I remembered was in that article. The face was faniliar too, but since the last time I saw it was with various tubes shoved in ,in and dried sputum in the closed eyes and, of course the nose so it wasnt an exact match to my memory but still pretty jarring.
Back in the day, I deliberately avoided tracking my patients. I didnt want to know their lives, their outcomes, nothing but the immediately pertinent facts, and once they were at the hospital they were no longer my concern. This was pre-HIPAA so the hospital WOULD have told me, but I never asked. I didnt WANT to know them, that just makes it more tragic if things go South.
But now I know his name, exactly how old he was, that his father is still alive, his basketball awards, the fact my son went to the same school 20 years later, and of course at least ONE of his friends.
And I kinda wish I DIDNT.
It just makes life and death seem that much more arbitrary, and a pile more tragic indeed.
…so the only take away here is be payed up and prayed up and ready to go any day and every day. Treat your loved ones like today may be your last.
Becase you know what?
It just might be.
The ground may just swallow you up later today.
…ya never know…
I read a story a few years back about a man sitting in his home next to a plate glass window, when he was hit and killed by lightning on a clear day. Sometimes your number is up and there’s not a damned thing to be done.