October 19, 2001

9:41 AM

The truth is out there... but is it The Real Thing? An example of 'victim' mentality in action. Big Bubba attempts to mug a coke machine, and it squashes him like a bug. Rather than accept the fact their son died a lunkhead's death, his parents declare he was the victim of a conspiracy.

"Why did the Sherbrooke Police play at tilting the machine themselves to see if they could tip it? Is not that the role of experts?"

I want to be an expert soda-machine tipper...
posted by Perigee (21 comments total)

Actually, turns out his name was Kevin Mackle, not Big Bubba.
posted by Hildago at 9:50 AM on October 19, 2001

Why does the US Government provide Safety regulations when the Canadian Government does not?

I love the "protect the criminal" American mentality - unless, of course, the criminals aren't American. Hooray for the Canadians for letting natural selection work.
posted by phoenix enflamed at 9:52 AM on October 19, 2001

This was natural selection at work and the parents cannot accept the fact that their son was an idiot.
posted by bondcliff at 10:07 AM on October 19, 2001

I am sensing a double post here.......unless I read about this somewhere else.
posted by Kafkaesque at 10:18 AM on October 19, 2001

hehe bondcliff....too true.
posted by xochi at 10:23 AM on October 19, 2001

The fact is, young people are still injured and killed by Coca-Cola machine, and such accidents will happen again unless these machines are properly secured.

And I might cut myself slicing a loaf of French bread. We must stop bread production and cut things with spoons from now on, lest more people get hurt!
posted by fleener at 10:23 AM on October 19, 2001

It's a double post.

MeFi's getting more and more like a desparate game of Just a Minute every day.
posted by holgate at 10:24 AM on October 19, 2001

Lucky for the general public that Mr. Belanger had nothing to do with the installation of seat belts and air bags in automobiles, other wise we would still be waiting.

Huh, seems like a big difference between personal safety restraint devices and devices designed to protect people who are damaging private property. Perhaps a better example would be erecting multiple barbed-wire fences around transformers so that dumb kids don't electrocute themselves. I'm not too concerned when a dumb kid does something exceptionally stupid and kills himself. I have bigger things to worry about.
posted by fleener at 10:26 AM on October 19, 2001

Arg. Sorry about that. I did search this one before posting - under the guy's name, Kevin Mackle. Metasearch came up with a big goose egg.

So, guilty but with mitigating circumstances.
posted by Perigee at 12:30 PM on October 19, 2001

The only problem with this coke machine is that it failed to kill the parents too.
posted by aramaic at 12:33 PM on October 19, 2001

I am sensing a double post here.......unless I read about this somewhere else.

this internet thing allows us to process an amazing amount of information, sort of amazing that with everything going on here its usually the human brains that beat the search engines in looking for double posts. That subtle, barely tangible memory of deja-vu-post.
posted by th3ph17 at 12:39 PM on October 19, 2001

Whoa - I retract my apology. The 'double post' link is to a short article that includes the back story. This is to a multi-page website built by the shmoe's parents! Non culpa, kids...
posted by Perigee at 12:40 PM on October 19, 2001

You can always tell the deja-vu post when the same black cat walks by you twice.

Anyway, I'm always up for people getting squished by stuff, especially vending machines, because they have one of the most laughable safety warning icons ever.
posted by Kafkaesque at 1:29 PM on October 19, 2001

I can't believe they said schadenfreude was dead. People still love laughing at other people dying, so long as it's one of the designated safe groups to laugh at.

"He deserved to die if he was that stupid."

Hate to harsh your buzz, but the kid was probably a reasonably intelligent human being. Reading that web site made me sad, because these parents have lost their son, and still can't get taken seriously. They're not asking for wads of cash to live off for the rest of their lives, they just want a corporate policy change so that more people won't die, and it sounds like they're getting laughed at everywhere they go.
posted by Hildago at 3:48 PM on October 19, 2001

The only problem with this coke machine is that it failed to kill the parents too.

Sweet Jesus! That's taking it a bit far.
posted by pudders at 3:53 PM on October 19, 2001

Non culpa, kids...

Culpa.
posted by holgate at 4:01 PM on October 19, 2001

Hate to harsh your buzz, but the kid was probably a reasonably intelligent human being.

Had you noticed that he pulled a pop machine over on top of himself? How do you explain this apparent contradiction?
posted by kindall at 4:05 PM on October 19, 2001

Kindall - intelligent people make mistakes all the time. Most of the time they're lucky enough to survive them, this kid wasn't.

I've done things that when I look back at them, I can only say "Wow, that was pretty dumb. Thank god { I had someone to make sure I passed out on my stomach | there wasn't an oncoming car right then | that person didn't have AIDS }." And in each of these instances, I know of people who made the exact same mistake that I did, and are dead because of it. Maybe I'm not reasonably intelligent. It's certainly debatable.

But there's a world of difference between trying to get free soda from a machine and strapping a JATO rocket onto your Impala.
posted by jaek at 4:25 PM on October 19, 2001

strapping a JATO rocket onto your Impala.

humph. how does that get you any free pop???
posted by quonsar at 6:37 PM on October 19, 2001

For my money, the best part about this whole thread is the URL. www.cokemachineaccidents.com. That is one fine domain name.
posted by diddlegnome at 9:16 PM on October 19, 2001

Darwin awards nomination anybody?
posted by alex3005 at 11:59 PM on October 19, 2001