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

Posted by simoniker on from the pavlov's-dog-setup dept.

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.

13 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Serious, but ... by Mad_Fred · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... 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?

  2. The sad thing... by {8_8} · · Score: 1, Insightful

    is that he got rewarded for impaling himself while doing something dumb.

    1. Re:The sad thing... by LordLucless · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    2. Re:The sad thing... by Lemmy+Caution · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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 becoming a blob ensconced in front of a TV screen is a lot dumber than getting hurt while play-acting.

  3. Good Mother by BigDork1001 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    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.

    --
    "Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
  4. Question by Glytch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Question by Thag · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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

      --
      All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
    2. Re:Question by TwistedSquare · · Score: 2, 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.

  5. hmm by 88NoSoup4U88 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    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' ?

  6. Re:When I was child... by elasticwings · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Awesome, milkshakes kick ass!!!

  7. Re:Darwin would be angry.. by DeepHurtn! · · Score: 2, Insightful
    If anything, it calls for a long talking-to from his parental units about how dumb it is to impersonate movies.

    Of course, since children never play, and we absolutely need to discourage them from doing so.

  8. Parents? by techstar25 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  9. Goes around, comes around by pommaq · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.