Tug of war turns into horror for students


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A simple game of tug-of-war ended horribly for two California high school seniors.

During Spirit Week at South El Monte High School outside of Los Angeles, Edith Rodriguez and Pablo Ocegueda were playing tug-of-war when the rope snapped. The rope had wrapped around the hands of Rodriguez and Ocegueda, so when it snapped, several of their fingers were severed. :|

Rodriguez, a soccer player, and Ocegueda, a football player, were immediately brought into Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center for surgery to reattach their fingers.

Eddie Pickett, a supervising dispatcher with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, told NBC News that the teens lost four fingers on each hand while Rodriguez also lost the thumb on her right hand.

"They were just both in shock, staring at their hands," Jennifer Jiminez, a freshman at South El Monte, told KCBS. "They didn't know what to do."

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Can someone tell me how that works O.o

I understand how you can have fingers torn off by the rope, I just don't know how the snapping has anything to do with it :\

Read about this yesterday and was like :| Well **** :\

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This happens way to often for people to not know about this. Long story short, it's akin to people breaking their arms while arm wresting. Tug of war is fine, and everyone will be mostly ok if they're just holding the rope and it breaks. Tie your hand / arm around it though, and have 20 people behind you tugging on it... say goodbye to some limbs.

It's against the rules, too.

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Incoming tug of war ban, I'm surprised it was even allowed, it is California after all, thought they already banned anything that could do harm that, isn't on the accepted list like football or basketball, you know "real" sports

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Incoming tug of war ban, I'm surprised it was even allowed, it is California after all, thought they already banned anything that could do harm that, isn't on the accepted list like football or basketball, you know "real" sports

Wrapping your hand around the rope is already "banned".

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Wrapping your hand around the rope is already "banned".

You can't guarantee kids won't do it, BAN, you and I know very well that's the mentality

Also I'm surprised there isn't any talk yet of suing the School for their lack of proper supervision, had they been "properly supervised" it wouldn't have happened

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We should put together a Neowin Tug 'O' War get together in Las Vegas this summer.

You can't guarantee kids won't do it, BAN, you and I know very well that's the mentality

Also I'm surprised there isn't any talk yet of suing the School for their lack of proper supervision, had they been "properly supervised" it wouldn't have happened

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You can't guarantee kids won't do it, BAN, you and I know very well that's the mentality

Also I'm surprised there isn't any talk yet of suing the School for their lack of proper supervision, had they been "properly supervised" it wouldn't have happened

I bet if you looked around, it is banned in a lot of places. IIRC there was some school /event that did this with a large reinforced rope that broke and killed a few people.

I mean, it's fun one on one, but doing it with a lot of people never seems to end well.

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I remember a story years ago of about 20-40 guys playing tug of war and the same thing happened, the rope snapped and one of the guys at the front actually had his whole arm ripped off

I vaguely remember seeing a photo of it I think

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