In what is becoming an all too common refrain these days, another idiot has managed to seriously injure himself trying to pull off a Jackass style stunt.
SARASOTA COUNTY—With his friend videotaping him and five others watching from below, Paul Smith leaped from the roof of the five-story condominium Tuesday night and sailed toward a swimming pool below, authorities said.
As the camera showed, Smith didn’t splash cleanly into the water. His torso and legs crashed into the ledge of the pool, and then he fell into the water.
Oops. Probably should have paid more attention in geometry class. Oh yeah, he dropped out of High School so he probably never took geometry. Another good reason to stay in school then.
Smith managed to pretty much shatter both his legs in his failed attempt and his friends captured it all on video. It
is
an impressive video (you can watch it here) and perhaps Smith will come out of this a bit wiser and with a fine example to show his own kids, should he ever reproduce, of the consequences of doing stupid things without much thought.
Smith’s mother, Janet Stone, has already been busy telling everyone that’ll listen that, yeah, what her son did was stupid, but it’s not really his fault even though she knows he’s done similar stupid stunts before. In a taped interview she blames all of the usual things such as the Jackass show and movie, the media in general, her kid’s friends, society as a whole and so on and so forth. Her son, she explains, is “impressionable.“
Yeah, he’s also 18 years old and a high school drop out so it doesn’t sound like he’s all that together in the “clued in” department.
Previous commentaries I’ve written on the rash of kids imitating Jackass stunts and hurting themselves have attracted a fair number of comments from other people who also claim to engage in such antics. It seems there are a lot of people out there who think that I just don’t “get it” about why these kids are doing these things.
The truth is I do “get it” as I have done my fair share of stupid things in my youth including one that ended up singing my eyebrows off and gave my bangs an unplanned trim. At one time I wanted to be a professional stunt man and I watched every TV special about stunt men and how they did what they did obsessively. Evil Knievel was my hero. I can easily understand the thrill of attempting something like leaping off a five story building into a swimming pool. The rush from doing something like that and making it through unhurt would be incredible. I’d also done enough smaller-scale stupid things in my youth that I ended up mildly injured from to recognize that possible outcome of a stunt of that size and that probably would have kept me from taking the risk.
My complaint with this story isn’t so much that the asshat tried and failed the stunt. It’s with the mother blaming everyone but the idiot himself for his injuries. Kids, if you’re going to do this stuff all I can say is good luck to you. But if you screw up I’m going to point you out as a good example of what not to do and if your parents try to blame everyone else, well, I’ll be here to call them asshats for it. Have fun.
Posted on 05/11/2003 at 10:21 AM 
Posted on 05/12/2003 at 03:52 AM 
The mother is just looking for people to blame because she doesnt want to admit that she possibly didnt do a good job or that her just is just a plain idiot. My grandparents had this kid that lived next door to them when I was growing up. I lost count how many broken limbs, corvettes and motorcycles this kid trashed. And they were all his fault, not lik ehe just had bad luck or anything. I mean how many times are you gonna race your bike in a parking lot only to crash, have your ankles pinned only to do it again. You’d think at some point he’d just giveup. Nope, he’s just lacking common sense. Last I knew he still had a vette and a rice rocket. He must have bionic limbs by now.