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Spider-Man 2 Game Rewarded To Tusk-Impaled Spidey Copycat 72

Thanks to FirstCoastNews/AP for its article discussing the videogame reward for a Florida child who impaled himself on an ornamental elephant tusk while impersonating Spider-Man. Apparently, after viewing the movie and "playing at his grandmother's home, imitating some of the super hero's moves... the boy lost his balance... and then hit the heavy mahogany elephant.. and half the elephant's large ivory tusk broke off and got stuck in his body." Post-accident, the boy's mother explained "she was proud of her son keeping his composure during the ordeal... [and] he'll be rewarded with a Spider-Man 2 video game [as recently covered on Slashdot Games]", saying "That was his motivation through it all... I'm like, whatever it takes." Feel free to suggest other hospitalization-related acts that could be performed to receive a similarly-themed videogame.
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Spider-Man 2 Game Rewarded To Tusk-Impaled Spidey Copycat

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  • Serious, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mad_Fred ( 530564 ) <fredrik@NOSpaM.bjoreman.com> on Saturday July 03, 2004 @06:20AM (#9599036) Homepage
    ... isn't it nice that, for a change, people (at least one person) don't go totally moral-panic, demanding censorship and warning labels on everything?
    • Not YET at least, wait until they get the bill from the hospital...
    • I'm sure it would be a different story if the boy had been killed in the accident.
      • Just today on an episode of Futurama, they had scenes of Fry lying dead in a coffin, with a huge bee stinger sticking out of him.

        I swear, it looked exactly like an elephant tusk.
    • Hollywood is a largely liberal institution. It's exempt from many forms of government-sponsored corporate abuse that plague other markets.
    • ... isn't it nice that, for a change, people (at least one person) don't go totally moral-panic, demanding censorship and warning labels on everything?

      You fool, do you know how many young lives are effected every year by elephant tusk impalement? How much longer will we needlessly allow tiny cute and innocent little children be gored by inanimate tusks? Do you have any idea how much pain and suffering could be prevented by a "WARNING: Do not use to impale self" or even a "WARNING: Impalement Risk" label?
  • I heard about this guy that worked at some place with these other guys that some friends of my second cousin knew, that REALLY wanted a copy of Half-Life. This was back in like '98. See, this guy's wife really, really, really didn't understand what the gane was about, so the guy tried to show her why he wanted it so bad and pulled out a crowbar and started whaling on things all over the house!

    Once she got out of the coma, and he got off his 3-4 year sentence, he got their kid's copy of Half-Life with the divorce settlement and he's had all the time he needed to play it ever since!

    True story!
  • The sad thing... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by {8_8} ( 31689 )
    is that he got rewarded for impaling himself while doing something dumb.
    • by LordLucless ( 582312 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @06:27AM (#9599053)
      Because you just know the next time he sees a giant elephant statue, he's going to think "Hey, if I impale myself on this things tusks, I could get a free computer game!". Don't be stupid. The kid is five years old, and has just been airlifted to hospital and probably scared half to death. And remember not to send flowers or chocolates to your next friend who injures themselves and lands in hospital - you'll only encourage them.
      • Re:The sad thing... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by {8_8} ( 31689 )
        Hehe, I guess you didn't get the joke.

        It's all a matter of perspective, really. You can see things the way you did, which is perfectly valid and probably the way a lot of parents would look at it. You can also simplify it and see the absurdity inherent in it, like I did.

        By the way, I wouldn't send flowers and chocolates to my friend in the hospital. I'd go visit them.
    • really, you know the kid eh?

      maybe he's getting 'rewarded' for being a brave kid and not freaking out while his family and other caring adults helped him get the bone out.

      hell, its not like geeks like you wouldn't need a lollypop ...
    • When I was kid, I hurt myself plenty when playing, winding up in a hospital a couple times due to falls and such. In the long run, though, being active has kept me from becoming pear-shaped. I still occassionally get hurt - I broke my arm snowboarding a couple years ago - but I think, in the long run, I'm better off for it.

      What would be sad would be if he didn't hurt himself acting like Spider-Man because he only sat around watching Spider-Man. Or if his play were limited to the videogame. I think that bec
    • Bouncing around the room and colliding with a statue falls within the normal and acceptable range of 5 year old behavior. If he was 13 and impaled himself while pretending to be spiderman, it would be dumb. This was just an unfortunate accident, not stupidity. Any lesson about being careful around ivory tusks that the child needed to learn was more than sufficiently reinforced by nearly getting killed, so a little comfort from his parents is much more appropriate than further punishment heaped on top of
  • Good Mother (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BigDork1001 ( 683341 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @06:22AM (#9599041) Homepage
    At least the mother isn't blaming the movie and video game for causing her son to pretend to be Spider Man. Instead of suing a bunch of people related to the movie and video game she's buying him the Spider Man game. After all kids have active imaginations and will play pretend and do stuff like this. And kids get into accidents like this. They'll trip and fall and other stuff, mostly not as sever as this though. The mother is handling this very well IMO.

    • Don't worry- The movie hasn't been out a week yet- give it time to make a bigger bucket load of money and you'll probably see the sharks moving in... Yeah- I hope I'm kidding there-

      Although I have seen a good sized rash of real people doing cartoony-style dumb stuff in television commercials trying to do Spiderman-type stuff...Like the kid with the web shooter who swings into the side of a building and gets flattened... Stupidity sells?
    • Bad Mother (Score:3, Funny)

      by Rufus88 ( 748752 )
      She's rewarding behavior that could have got the boy killed. I hereby dub her "The Anti-Darwin".
  • by howman ( 170527 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @06:25AM (#9599050)
    Electocute yourself trying to rig up a virtual sex machine... win Final Fantasy
    Jump in front of a Subaru win GT 2...
    Walk down any lower east LA street... win Doom II
    Return from Iraq... win Splinter Cell
    Fight of a gater in Florida, win Redneck rampage...
    Surf the net unprotected, win IE 6... oh you would have to have it already to do that...

    Impaled by a tusk imitating Spiderman... could have been worse... He could have taken grandma out in the process...
  • Question (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Glytch ( 4881 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @06:40AM (#9599098)

    What the heck was an elephant statue with sharpened tusks doing at the same elevation as a 5-year-old? While I have no kids of my own, I have several dozen young cousins, and the first rule of watching 5-year-olds is to make sure that dangerous and fragile items are stuffed in a closet before they arrive.

    I think grandma here is more interested in not being sued for negligence herself.

    • Re:Question (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Thag ( 8436 )
      When the aforementioned five-year-old is climbing around on top of a filing cabinet playing Spider-Man, is anywhere really safe?

      The real issue is, what supposedly responsible person was letting him do this?

      Jon Acheson
      • Re:Question (Score:3, Insightful)

        The real issue is, what supposedly responsible person was letting him do this?

        "Judge, I move for a motion of boys will be boys" -- Lisa Simpson. You can't watch kids 24 hours a day. They will always get up to some hijinx or other, you can't prevent that. You can try and instill how dangerous things are into them, but this kid was only five. These things happen, and it's just good to see that there are no lawsuits flying about the place for once.

    • Man, I remember when we had metal Tonka Trucks with dangerous corners. Chinese kids have toys made of folded tin with the razor sharp corners and edges.

      Now and then a kid bled, and he learned a lesson about being reckless. You could count the number of resulting deaths on fewer fingers than it took to count kids struck by lightning.

      Now we're Nerfing the world, and kids are growing up without any common sense or practical caution.

      • Man, I wish they woulda nerfed childhood when I was growing up. That woulda been cool to wake up the next day and find out that the school bully got nerfed so he's weaker then me. Of course, the school bully would whine next, and I'd get the nerfbat up side the head.
    • the first rule of watching 5-year-olds is to make sure that dangerous and fragile items are stuffed in a closet before they arrive.

      Seems to me that seriously padding up that closet, maybe drilling in a few air holes... Heck, even getting some heavy-use dollys and cool hockey masks with the bars over the mouths and just sticking several cousins in there at a time, would be easier than eliminating the things that might harm them.
  • I see this kid getting a Darwin Award sometime in his life. At least he has something to look for.
  • I blame (Score:5, Funny)

    by zors ( 665805 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @07:17AM (#9599223)
    the elephants. Clearly elephants are attempting to destroy our youth. Before they were content just to spy upon them from afar, but now their sleeper agents are attacking our children in our own homes. Something needs to be done.

    Remember, if not us, who? If not now, when? Join G.A.E.I. (Gamers Against Elephant Impalement) today. Get G.A.E.I. today, for the children.
  • Feel free to suggest other hospitalization-related acts that could be performed to receive a similarly-themed videogame

    Now /. wants to be Fark?
  • Evercrack (Score:5, Funny)

    by DrWho520 ( 655973 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @08:14AM (#9599467) Journal
    How about being utterly absorbed by a MORPG, forsaking your family, job and any outdoor activity to completely immerse yourself in the gaming experience. What do you get after spending 96 straight hours battling in the realms of Norath?

    A copy of .hack//infection, .hack//mutation, .hack//outbreak or .hac//quarantin, of course.
  • hmm (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 88NoSoup4U88 ( 721233 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @08:21AM (#9599489)
    Whereas it's good to see that they aren't blaming the game/movie for such unresponsible parenting/bad luck : What is this article doing on Slashdot ?

    I'm the last person to whine about contents on Slashdot, but I wondered what the editors had in mind to slip this one through : It seriously has -nothing- to do with games, and -nothing- with anything Slashdot related : it's stuff i normally find on Fark.

    How bout next time including the end tag 'hilarity ensues' ?

  • Yet another reason why ivory elephant tusks should be banned.

    Really - there will be people out there calling for SpiderMan to be banned because of this. I say ban tusks as if the tusk was not there, the accident could not have happened.

    I'm curious about the scene in SpiderMan 2 where he impales himself on an ivory elephant tusk. I suppose it's lucky he hadn't been watching Edward Scissorhands.
  • Ah! So thats what you get for receiving a darwin awards honorable mention.
  • "I won't even subject you to the horrors of our Three Stooges ward."
    --Dr. Hibbert
  • I was playing Tarzan with the drapes and swung my mouth into the corner of a piano. Knocked out all my front teeth. Had to put up with stitches and milkshakes for weeks.
  • by nobodyman ( 90587 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @12:13PM (#9600517) Homepage
    ... because it would have sucked if the reward was, say, a ornamental mahogany elephant. Ouch.
  • Parents? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by techstar25 ( 556988 ) <techstar25.gmail@com> on Saturday July 03, 2004 @04:49PM (#9601985) Journal
    Who are these parents taking their 5 year old child to the PG-13 movie? That's why we have movie ratings, folks...pardon me if I sound like a over-conservative moron. It never fails, whenever I go see a movie like Kill Bill, there is always one parent with his/her 3, 4 and 5 year olds in the theatre. I just don't get it. I don't need a baby crying all throughout my movie.
    • Well the difference between Kill Bill and spiderman...

      I agree with Kill Bill though, when I saw the first one (second was a late late show), there were some kids with there parents. No. Not OK.

      I think a movie theater chain should do something about it. Meerly suggesting that parents of small children take their kids to earlier shows (shouldnt they be in bed anyway). Shrek 2 may be a kids movie, but it has lots of teen and adult appeal, the 9:00 shoing should really be free of annoying kids (even t

      • Re:Parents? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Cyno01 ( 573917 )
        Marcus Theatres around here have a policy that no one under 6 is allowed into an R rated movie. Period. Not that kids slighltly, or even more than slightly above that age should be seing R movies either, but its a start. I went and saw The Green Mile when i was in 6th grade, or whenever it was out, but thats certanly a different R rating than Kill Bill or something.
        • In the UK, its the LAW that the ages on films are just that, hard floors for customers. You cant take a kid into an 18 rated film, the kid isnt old enough and the cinema wont sell you the ticket.
        • The local theater here has an even stronger policy: no-one under 17 is allowed into an R rated movie. Period. it's stupid, that's what NC17 is for, but
  • by Anonymous Coward
    they'll be giving the kid the console version and not the crappy PC version.
  • boom (Score:3, Funny)

    by Rinisari ( 521266 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @07:20PM (#9602916) Homepage Journal
    If I went on a rampage with a chainsaw, picked off nine people with a hunting rifle, and stole a Ferrari with the purpose of getting across town to steal a tank from the local barracks, would I get a copy of GTA: Vice City?
  • Reminds me of a friend of mine who was playing touch football in somebody's yard and was accidentaly impailed on the antler of a wrought-iron deer lawn statue. Missed his vitals, so we can laugh about it as he only ended up with a few stiches and a good scar story. I dont think anyone bought him a football for it though. But in either case its refreshing to see that they're saying, yeah, he's a dumb little kid, dumb little kids do dumb things and sometimes hurt themselves, lets not blame someone with deep p
  • by pommaq ( 527441 ) <.es.yarps. .ta. .neraffarts.> on Sunday July 04, 2004 @03:26AM (#9604650) Homepage
    Wait, a mahogany statue with ivory tusks, bought in Africa? If someone should be impaled, it's this kid's grandmother for buying that thing - African mahogany means rainforest and ivory means poached elephant. This is an open-and-shut case of karma and IMO that old hag got off lightly.

    As for the kid getting a game, whatever, parents do stuff like that to cheer their kids up. I remember getting a copy of Master of Orion after yanking out a tooth.
  • Well... living on the lower north side of Pittsburgh, heard a story about a woman with a batman fettish. To make it short she was tied to the bed when her husband jumped off the dresser, hit his head on the ceiling fan, knocking himself out. All she could do was scream till someone called the police. They found Batman knocked out on the floor with a naked woman tied up in bed. =)
  • So some kid is playing around, falls and hurts himself rather badly. The fact that he was pretending to be Spider Man was beside the point. Kids get hurt all the time when they're playing pretending to be all sorts of things. I see nothing special here.

    Kids are going to have imaginations, they're going to play, and they're going to get hurt doing so. It's a fact of life.

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