spideygirl

Just a few minute ago I witnessed on live television (Global) a man set himself on fire. Needless to say this is a very disturbing tragedy. Also after the incident on the local all news channel (CP24) they showed repeated footage of this happening with unedited audio where you could hear a man saying "yes" as if he was pleased to be getting this footage. I find that today's corporate media outlets are totally void of any social responsibility in any geniuine way. Why is it that Janet Jackson shows a breast & thus ensues a crackdown of censorship that mandates a delay for live entertainment shows--- yet there is no need to delay what is possibly a fatal tragedy in the middle of the afternoon when undoubtedly there are young or impressionable people watching? I am constantly disgusted by the lack of balance when these sorts of things are covered by major news outlets. Where is the social conscience & urgings to seek psychological help if one is so disturbed, as to hopefully prevent future tragedies? Obviously there are many complex issues here, but I just wanted to say something as a start....Maybe we can at the very least voice our displeasure with the lack of compassion & balance in our city's media outlets by contacting them directly. I know that there are independant news sources also available in the city, the average person may not seek these out. I don't mean to seem whiny. I don't pretend to know everything. If there is a message here I guess the most basic one is: IF you or anyone you know has any mental anguish PLEASE seek the help that is available.

Busta

One of the reasons why I don't watch the news.

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basic

I saw this happen live on my way from lunch :|

Phlux

It is too easy for people to brush something like that off as the action of a crazy person, and if we define "crazy" as "socially aberrant," it's undeniably the case. But self-destruction of this type tends to be triggered by strong feelings of morality. It was June 11, 1963 when Thich Quang Duc, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, brought self-immolation into the realm of public discourse. The Vietnam war was on, but that was not his issue - he killed himself in protest of religious persecution going on in his country. As an act, it demonstrates a level of absolute belief and it, the flame, the smell, the plume of smoke, cries, like no other banner or picket sign, for attention. Perhaps it is to guilt the people who they are protesting against. Perhaps it is to wake an apathetic or slumbering populace or inspire a fearful one to action. Maybe this man was crazy, I am not totally aware of what transpired, but seeing as he did it in front of Queens Park, it leads me to believe there may have been some political motive behind it.

"I feel the time has come to project my own inadequacies and dissatisfactions into the socio-political and scientific schemes. Let my own lack of a voice be heard. To burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance." -Thich Nhat Hanh

Mint-E

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So you're asking for the news to be censored? Can they still show car accidents or plane crashes on the news? Surely they're just as bad, if not worse.

If there are kids watching the news let their parents explain what happened to them. After all, just sitting your kid infront of the TV isn't parenting.

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peachfuzz

it isn't?

upinflames1234

... if you don't want you or your kids to watch it then don't...

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anabolic frolic

The news has always been filled with horrific images. I'd never have the news playing if my children were in the room.

Saffron

Ignorance is bliss eh?

I wonder if they brought the guy to my work or took him across the street.... I wonder if he's ok.

Was the guy suffering from mental illness, or was he a farmer that has had enough of the favourtism of urban centers over rural areas in Ontario? (since you forgot to mention the rally in your initial post which is why the media was there in the first place) Setting yourself on fire is on hell of an attention getter.

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waffle

Seriously. Some parents are trying to censure out certain television channals when some of the most horrific and damaging images a child can see are right there on public stations on the news.

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itsgigglegirl

thanks for clearing that up for me...i was wondering what the media was doing there to begin with...when you find out what his motivation was, let those of us far away know

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Saffron

images:




He survived because EMS were standing by and Toronto fire as well. The guy knew he wasn't going to hurt himself with all those people waiting around him. I wonder if Budget will allow him to return the van as is?

Saffron

The man in the van was Anh Ngoc Vuong, the Star has learned. It's not known what drove Vuong to set himself ablaze yesterday after a half-hour standoff. He was in serious condition at Sunnybrook hospital last night being treated for severe burns.

The Mississauga man rented the van yesterday morning from a Budget Rent A Car location near Pearson airport. At about 1 p.m., as a rally by Ontario farmers was getting underway at the Legislature, Vuong drove through a police line on Queen's Park Cres., just north of Wellesley St. W.

"I don't want to kill myself at all," Vuong yelled out the window as police vehicles moved in to block the van. "I don't want to harm nobody."

At times during the next half-hour, he would move the white van forward and back without hitting police cruisers that had penned him in, sometimes spinning his tires and forcing officers and a police translator to jump out of the way.

At one point he stopped and tossed a manila envelope to a nearby officer, who opened it and pulled out some papers.

According to a source, the messages demanded a meeting with acting Police Chief Mike Boyd and Premier Dalton McGuinty. The messages also contained claims he had been "tortured by police," a source said.

Vuong also waved sheets of cardboard with messages scrawled on them.

The scene was caught on live television as reporters at the protest swung their cameras around. Hundreds of farmers also turned and walked closer. Police moved in, keeping back the huge crowd as tensions grew.

"We're not sure what's in that truck," one officer said.

Among the farmers, who saw their protest become a backdrop to a life-and-death drama, there were mixed emotions as the standoff unfolded.

"He's stealing our thunder," shouted one man in tan overalls, while more than one shouted, "Shoot him."

Said Deb Gilvesy, a farmer from southwestern Ontario: "We don't see this in Tillsonburg. We don't see anything too exciting — maybe a pedestrian getting hit. It's a nice, quiet place."

The van remained motionless for a time while police tried to talk to Vuong, who had rolled down the window to shout at them. He then picked up a gas container and began to douse himself before waving a pair of lighters, one in each hand.

The smell of gasoline began to permeate the air.

Suddenly, the van backed up over a snowbank, then sped forward. At the same time, a police cruiser sped up to meet it. The two vehicles hit head-on, the force of the collision collapsing the hood of the police car and crumpling the front of the van.

At that moment, flames engulfed the driver's side as onlookers watched in horror.

The two firefighters closest to the scene when the flames erupted were Ratushniak and Peter Bader, with the backup crew from station 325.

Police officers rushed in, breaking the van's windows with metal rods, and Ratushniak threw a hose into the passenger's side window and began dousing the flames. He then ran around to the driver's side, where Bader was already pulling the man, covered in flames, from the seat. Both worked feverishly with gloved hands to smother the flames.

"As we approached him, he had already become engulfed," said Ratushniak, 42. "I was surprised he went up that fast. His upper body was burned pretty bad."

The two had to work fast and together. "Peter pulled him out. We had him on the ground. Peter had the hose that I had pushed through the truck and I was taking his clothes off down to his underwear. He had on two pairs of pants and they were saturated with gas."

It was 45 seconds before the flames were extinguished. It appeared that much of Vuong's clothes were burned off. He was rushed to Sunnybrook with severe burns and a reported head wound, possibly inflicted when officers broke the van windows.

A police officer suffered minor injuries and the firefighters suffered minor burns.

Ratushniak and Bader insisted on sharing credit for the rescue with other members of the crew, including Russell Vernon, Jeff Gayman and Jeff Bigham.

Gayman, who drove the truck and was the pump operator, said the worst part was not being able to see inside the van. "We were prepared for the worst and it might have been related to the farmers, so it could have had fertilizer in it," he said.

He went to the hospital with Vuong, armed with a fire extinguisher in case any flames erupted inside the ambulance.

"He was kind of out of it and they were giving him morphine," Gayman said. "He was kind of mumbling and trying to lift himself up."

DJLeash

god that's messed up.

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itsgigglegirl

that's the spirit!

technoshaman78

I guess this is the kind of mentality that would drive someone to set themselves on fire in the first place. People can be so freakin stupid.

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Saffron

^^ Meh give the hecklers a break, the guy did steal their thunder. The protest was getting a lot of media attention until that happened. And because a lot of other ETF (Emergency Task Force) incidents have happened in Toronto this week (man killing himself and throwing his 5 year old kid off an overpass on the 401, Man killing someone then knocking on the door of a stranger going inside and shooting himself in the head) that now the media is focusing on how much crazy violent shit is going on in the city lately. Everyone has completely lost sight of the issue they were trying to present which was that urban centers are getting more money than rural areas by the Provincial government. I see why they were upset but yes it was a tad uncalled for. I think they said all that stuff before he actually lit himself on fire.

I find it funny that he did that to himself then EMS took him to a hospital 15mins away when there are 3 hospitals (2 with ER's) literally a block away. Apparently TGH was sending people away because we are overloaded with people (patients even now in our ER are laying in beds in the hallway) so they were not taking new patients. This again goes back to the government and how they have cut back so much on everything. Who voted for these MOFO's again? NOT I!

waffle

There so woried about their stupid event and ideas that they could care less if somone dies. They just want to make money at any expense.

DJLeash

screw the govt!
even though canada's is still way cooler than the us's

Saffron

I don't think their ideas or their protest was stupid. They have every right to be upset with the government because most of the money does get pumped into cities like Toronto, however, we have the population so why not? I feel bad for the farmers though, because they are getting screwed and ignored by the government.

They aren't looking to MAKE money, they are looking for funding to help them keep their farms. If we loose agriculture in Ontario we in the big cities will end up paying more for meat, milk, veggies, eggs etc... I certainly don't want that.

Also they weren't certain the guy was going to die. When the whole thing started he was driving wildly in the van just backing into stuff, he could have hurt someone who was part of the protest. He ended up soaking himself with the gasoline after a bit of a standoff with police. Again I will repeat the comments were probably made BEFORE he lit himself on fire. I'm sure all those protesters were traumatized when they saw the man on fire. People do have compassion.

technoshaman78

Oh my god that reminds me of when I was in Phoenix...there was all sorts of weird shit going on all the time. Me and my friend once were driving out in the superstition mountains one day (lotsa steep mountain grades and cliffs out there) and we passed this luxury sedan with a bunch of people in suits standing outside of it...and then there was a car behind it with the back door open and some girls legs hanging out...so we keep driving for about a mile and turn around--by the time we got back...luxury sedan gone, people standing around watching a huge ball of fire shooting up from an exploding car that just went over a 50 ft+ cliff. All sortsa wierd shit happens in phoenix. The news there is really scary. I think its the heat...it gets to people...and all the dust. That stuff in the quote up above is crazy though...I dont think I ever heard anything like that...although when I lived in Jersey city a few years ago some guy stabbed his girlfriend 40 times and then dragged her around my block...that would be kinda traumatizing glad I didnt see it.

peachfuzz

bet he'd be a hot date...

ha?

technoshaman78

well I didnt really tell anyone how he dragged the girl around the block...I dont want to make anyone queezy.

DJLeash

so any ladies want to go for a ride around the block with me?

i just sharpened my steak knives