BREAKING: Teen Killed in Skateboarding Accident

[mahatmakanejeeves]

There are no national implications to this. It's a beautiful day in northern Virginia. The temperature is 78 degrees, and it's mostly sunny. School is out or just about to be, so some kids went out skating around the neighborhood.

BREAKING: Teen Killed in Skateboarding Accident

(Updated at 3:45 p.m.) An 18-year-old Arlington Public Schools student has died after a skateboarding accident in Arlington Heights this afternoon.

The accident happened on the 300 block of S. Highland Street around 12:30 p.m. According to police, the teen was skateboarding down the street while hanging on to the side of a pickup truck, driven by a 17-year-old male student at an unknown rate of speed.

The skateboarder somehow lost balance and fell to the ground, hitting his head. He was not wearing a helmet. The fall caused “significant head trauma” and left a large pool of blood on the ground.

The victim was in cardiac arrest when paramedics arrived on scene, according to Arlington County Police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck. Medics performed CPR, the teen regained a pulse, and he was rushed to George Washington University in critical condition, Sternbeck said. He has since been pronounced dead.

You never know.

[hobbit709]

1. There's not much leeway when you violate the laws of physics.

[NaturalHigh]

2. When I think of all the things I did as a teenager...

I'm sometimes amazed that I didn't meet the same fate.

Condolences to this young man's family.

[Orrex]

3. I concur absolutely.

I did a ton of Darwin Award-worthy shit through my teen years, and I lived to tell about it only because I wasn't quite stupid enough to accidentally destroy myself.

Yes, what this young man did was stupid, but he's hardly unique in that regard.

[HereSince1628]

6. Indeed. Those of us who escaped the consequences of the irrational exuberance of youth

look back and realize 'that could have been me".

[Xyzse]

9. Same here

I just told my sister recently some of the stuff I did when I was younger.

Which may make her a bit more overprotective towards my nephew...
Hrm...... Maybe I shouldn't have done that.

[HappyMe]

10. Yeah I did some stuff that

probably should have offed me.

My sons used to do some crazy stuff on their skateboards.

[TheFutureWillCome]

11. i'd have to agree

lots of crazy shit done.

[uponit7771]

19. +1

[snooper2]

4. ropes make this safer

from experience down the backroads of Missery, long as you know how to turn---

[Mnemosyne]

5. Had very sad. Ever seen the show 'Scarred'? I'm always amazed at how much damage some do without

ending up dead.

My daughter's friends used to pull stunts like that, scared the bejebus out of me all the time.

Oh, to be young and invincible again...

[Initech]

16. Oh god that show scares the crap out of me.

[Mnemosyne]

18. I'm on antenna now, but could not stop watching when I had cable. I cringed and worried for those

kids every show. I will always remain seriously, and happily, surprised they weren't killed in those stunts.

[Initech]

20. I'm glad I don't participate in any sport where the goal is to not die.

I'm surprised more skateboarders aren't killed in those stunts.

[Mnemosyne]

21. Me too. I'm more of a Tilt-A-Whirl person than a roller coaster one.

Does that make me boring and unadventursome?

[Apophis]

7. BREAKING: Teen killed doing something stupid.

[liberal_at_heart]

8. This is the age that scares parents the most. I know. I have an 18 year old daughter.

All you can do is hope they survive this age is naivete and ignorance.

[leftyohiolib]

12. iread an article here about how to entice the young to get insurance and the one of the teens in the

article said "im not getting insurance cause i never get sick"

[ileus]

13. Skateboards kill people....no really

a friends brother got in a fight at a skateboard park, he ended up clubing the other kid in the head with his board and he died. Didn't even knock the kid out or down at the time of the fight, later that night he went to the ER but by that time it was too late.

[kudzu22]

14. Sometimes, the purpose of your life

is to serve as a warning to others.

[applegrove]

15. I'm surprised skateboard deaths don't happen more often. I saw

a skateboarder cross 6 lanes of busy traffic going against the light the other day. Crazy. Just crazy.

[Chan790]

17. Why take him 30 minutes away to GW Med. Center...

when they had to drive past hospitals to get there? If he was stable and had never lost consciousness...maybe...but they'd already had to restart his heart once.

(I used to live there. There are literally like 6 closer hospitals including 3 on the way, one just blocks from there.)

I know, GWMC is the best hospital in the metro-DC area (I've heard the radio ads)...but when you have that kind of head-trauma, you don't need the best hospital, you need the closest hospital where they can drill a hole in your skull to relive inter-cranial pressure before it causes you to go back into cardiac arrest or stroke out. If need be you can be transferred after you're stable.

This is why you never ask critical patients or their parents "what hospital?"

VHC right there in Arlington is more than capable of that procedure and if they'd taken him there, he might have survived.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

22. I assume the EMTs had a reason.

I've never known an ambulance crew give a choice. I've always been told the ambulance HAS to to go to nearest absent any extenuating circumstances.

I went through this with both my parents as they preferred and had doctors at one hospital but the ambulance always took them to the closer less desirable (to them) hospital. This entailed more than one private ambulance transfer.

I have a hospital, called Thorek, two blocks from my house and a trauma center, called Illinois Masonic, about two miles from my house. My neighbor's brother is an ER doc and worked in both. We have strict orders to avoid Thorek for anything more than a sprain. Anything heart related is a no go. His parents were here and the mom got really sick. It was a big to do when the ambulance came - the dad really put up a fight and got the ambulance to got to Masonic.

I assume parent choice wasn't in play here.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

24. That comes up at ArlNow.com every time something like this happens.

This is from the comments:

David • 17 hours ago
I'm a little curious as to why ACFD took him to GW hospital. On the map, Arlington Hospital seems a lot closer.

----

jennyarl74 >David • 17 hours ago
GW is more equipped for a trauma like that, GW is close enough its worth the extra distance.

----

BluemonFred >David • 17 hours ago

GWU is a Level I Trauma center. VHC is not.

----

David >BluemonFred • 17 hours ago

You're right. VHC is only level 2, assuming they have kept that designation. Fairfax Hospital is the only Level 1 in NoVa.

----

nom de guerre >David • 16 hours ago

VHC is no longer a Trauma Center.

http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/OEMS/Trauma/TraumaCenters.htm

So there you have it. I know where the location of the incident is. It's a pretty quick trip into DC via Arlington Boulevard. GW Hospital might be closer to the 300 block of South Highland Street than VHC.

[cali]

23. You never know what exactly?

That skateboarding hanging on to a pick up truck without a helmet is risking your life?

Well you should know.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

25. What I meant was,

You never know when you wake up in the morning if this is going to be your last day on earth.

This kid was two weeks from graduation. He was going to VCU in the fall. He was on top of the world. Then, in an instant, his remaining lifespan could be measured in minutes.

Arlington skateboarder hanging onto truck dies following mishap

By Matt Zapotosky and Patricia Sullivan, Jun 04, 2013 08:14 PM EDT
The Washington Post

John Malvar was supposed to walk down the aisle with his Washington-Lee High School classmates at graduation in just over two weeks. Last Friday, he had gone to the prom. An Instagram photo shows him in a tuxedo, hamming for the camera.

The 18-year-old was in the “prime of his life,” his father said. Eager to go to college at Virginia Commonwealth University, eager to start working toward his goal of becoming a nurse.

“He was a good kid,” said his father, George Malvar. “He’s always smiling, and everybody liked him.”

On Tuesday, John Malvar got on a skateboard and held on to a pickup truck driven by a friend. In the 300 block of South Highland Street in Arlington County, police said, the young man lost his grip and fell. He suffered “significant head trauma” and later was pronounced dead at an area hospital, police said.