Young Couple Found Dead Under Deflated Promotional Balloon

[matcom]

<snip>

LUTZ — The son of a prominent Tampa jeweler and young woman from Lutz were found dead Saturday morning inside a deflated promotional balloon used to advertise condominiums at LakeView at Calusa Trace.

Jason Ackerman, 21, a junior at the University of South Florida, and Sara Rydman, 21, of Lutz, were found by a maintenance man around 9:45 a.m. when he noticed two bodies protruding from the deflated balloon, which was spread out across the grass near the complex entrance. Sheriff’s deputies said the two were fully clothed and were not victims of foul play.

“It does not appear that anybody did anything to them,” said Maj. Bob Schrader, adding that there was no evidence to suggest anyone put their bodies in the balloon to hide them. “The deaths appear to be accidental.”

Investigators would not speculate on the cause of death, but Sara Rydman’s mother, Linda Rydman, said the Hillsborough Medical Examiner suggested that inhaling helium had contributed to their deaths.

“It was more of a fun thing they thought they were doing,” she said. “You know how you blow up the balloon and suck the helium…”

Inhaling helium can cause brain damage and death, according to the Compressed Gas Association, which develops safety standards in the gas industry. When the lungs are filled with helium, oxygen is removed from the bloodstream. Depending on how much helium is inhaled, a person could lose consciousness quickly and die from lack of oxygen.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/06/03/Tampabay/2_found_dead_under_de.shtml

[azmouse]

1. I nominate them for the Darwin Awards.

[ThomCat]

2. Unfortunately, that's appropriate. I second that nomination.

[bertha katzenengel]

28. Third. Isn't this common sense? The human body needs a gas: oxygen.

Helium is a gas that contains no oxygen.

:dunce:

(Now: not common sense, I suppose, is the fact that these are elements, and anyone who knows this would know that helium contains no oxygen. But still.)

[NewWaveChick1981]

3. Sounding like the Chipmunks isn't worth dying for!

Geez... :wow:

[Radio_Lady]

22. Please. My husband was named Alvin in 1934 and he finally

changed it legally in 1973. The Chipmunk connection drove him crazy in school.

I agree. They were stupid to do this. Whoever thought up the promotion and ordered the balloon should share the pain along with family members.

[jmowreader]

25. Why should they? (Vicious rant enclosed)

I'm probably going to be branded a heartless, vicious brute for saying this, but where's the realty company's responsibility in this?

I doubt they were alone in this. More than likely there were a bunch of people who were getting fucked up on some weird drug when one of their number said "Hey man, there's a Great Big Helium Balloon over at the new housing development. I bet if we pulled that down and sucked on it we could really get wasted!"

So they went over there and pulled this thing down and sucked on it, and everyone sounded like Alvin, Simon and Theodore, and then these two kids in question sucked one too many times and that "simple asphyxiant" thing about helium kicked in. People tend to run like hell when someone dies in front of them.

Next thing you know, Jeb will require all big helium balloons to have the fill valves padlocked, and the kids will start cutting holes in the envelopes to get at the helium, so Jeb will require all big helium balloons to be constructed like a steel-belted radial...eventually they'll be completely tamperproof. Completely incapable of lifting their own weight, but that's fine too, the Florida Mobile Crane Association will step in to take up the slack...

I feel bad for the parents. I really do. No one should have to bury their child. But unfortunately, they died from a terminal case of dumb-ass.

- - - - - TEAR LINE - VICIOUS RANT FOLLOWS - IF YOU DON'T HAVE A STIFF CONSTITUTION TURN BACK NOW - - - - -

I hope that when the autopsy results come back ("they died from sucking helium") that shit gets put on the front page of every newspaper and is made the top story on every newscast so people can see that HELIUM WILL KILL YOUR KID FUCKING DEAD IF YOU LET HIM INHALE IT, DAMMIT!

Every once in a while we have promotions where we blow up balloons and all the time I get asked for one that isn't tied because "my child loves to inhale helium." I always refuse, and I show them the label on the side of the cylinder that says this shit is lethal. Are you listening, parents? Lethal. It will drive the oxygen out of your lungs. It's fucking lethal and no one knows it. You might as well give your kid a balloon full of carbon monoxide, and no I'm not being extreme here. Well, the parents I point this out to are always stunned. Everyone thinks helium's just this cute little benign thing. It is an industrial gas and there's not an industrial gas in the world that doesn't come with some kind of fun surprise. (Squirt a little oxygen on an oily surface if you want some REAL entertainment.) Let me see...any of the shielding gases are simple asphyxiants--argon, neon, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, helium. All of them drive oxygen away. Carbon monoxide, in addition to its well-known lethality, is a very good fuel gas--the official UL fabric flammability test fuel is mostly carbon monoxide. Acetylene goes unstable if you let its storage pressure go over 250psi--which can happen if you leave a cylinder in the sun--or release it at more than 15psi, or use more than one-seventh of the capacity of the cylinder in one hour, and unstable acetylene will spontaneously explode. It also goes unstable if you lay a cylinder of it on its side for very long--and, oh yeah, it's also a simple asphyxiant (it's also an anesthetic gas, but I seriously doubt anyone will ever use it for that). Oxygen causes oil to spontaneously ignite, which is why all oxygen equipment says "use no oil" on it. Nitrous oxide is an oxidizer, and an anesthetic, AND a simple asphyxiant. I could go on but you get the point.

Maybe some good will come out of this. Maybe a parent somewhere will stop letting their child huff helium. I can only hope.

[LeftyMom]

4. Was there any question where this story was from?

:eyes:

[matcom]

5. ...

:rofl:

[SteppingRazor]

7. Says the person from Calif...

You're just jealous because we supplanted you on the Weirdest State list :P

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

13. And yet NJ has a magazine devoted to being weird.

Half the stuff in there is from West Milford though. What a freak show that town is...

[LeftyMom]

16. I'm from the boring part anyhow

All the wierdness comes from the bay. All the sane people move to spots that don't smell like dead fish. :P

[Coventina]

6. Tragic for the families.....unfortunately it reminds me of that hilarious

scene from "Broadway Danny Rose" with the mafia shootout in the warehouse with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade floats.

I'm giggling and feeling ashamed of myself.

It really is sad that two young lives ended so prematurely.

[havocmom]

8. Day-um! I scooped MATCOM twice in one lifetime

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=5236985&mesg_id=5236985

Was thinking this would make a great episode of CSI- Campus Edition...
was it just stupidity or was is murder?

[matcom]

9. eh. doesn't count

ridiculous, intellectual headline :D

MatcomNews readers don't want to THINK! :P

[havocmom]

10. LOL I knew I was asking for trouble...

but I have faith in people being thinkers... so far, I continue to be disappointed.

I shall assume Baby MATCOM will be raised with a better grasp of what makes her work than the poor unfortunates who have been removed from the gene pool.

What cracks me up is wondering if they yelled for help, and how that would have sounded.

[matcom]

11. HAHAHAHAHA

What cracks me up is wondering if they yelled for help, and how that would have sounded.

:rofl:

but you mentioned a "Baby Matcom" :scared:

you really want ME reproducing? :scared:

[havocmom]

12. Isn't there a baby MATCOM?

Do I have my characters confused again?

[matcom]

18. not last time i looked

you haven't been talking to Mrs matcom have you? :scared:

[havocmom]

19. Damn, wrong guy...

:rofl: I gotta get something for this dementia.

[matcom]

21. *WHEW*

i thought you pissed on a stick or sumptin' and were gonna tell me that the drunken night we met and spent in that alley behind the liquor store was coming back to haunt me

*WHEW*

[havocmom]

24. Never been that far east.

Always wanted to see Boston though.

Way too old for stick pissing tests.

[wildhorses]

14. not only is this the funniest thing I have seen all day

but the thread just keeps getting better
K&R

[Duer 157099]

15. I'll bet they died laughing

and really, what more could one ask for, in the end?

yes, it's tragic, of course; I'm just sayin' that of all the ways to go, laughing with your SO isn't so bad

(I know it's not laughing gas, but since they apparently went in to make their voices sound funny, they were probably laughing, and didn't even know what hit them)

[havocmom]

20. Maybe not laughing, but definately talking funny

What the hell are kids in school for these days?

[Oeditpus Rex]

17. Thank Dog they weren't nekkid!

Think of the children! :cry:

[Ron Green]

23. Florida again. I'm keepin' track.

[iconoclastic cat]

26. Yeah, what the hell's going on down there?

[derby378]

27. Man, if I have to stop inhaling helium...

Even I know inhaling that much helium is just asking for trouble.