Hay bales removed from Old Main Hill for liability

January 14, 2002

By Marcie Young
Statesman International Editor

LOGAN - Utah State University student Janessa Slatky wasn't sure if her car was going to stop on the icy road when she saw an 8-year-old boy fly down Old Main Hill, bump across the frozen gravel and land in a front yard across the street.

Last year, the sledder would have hit a rock-hard bale of frozen straw. With the disappearance of the straw bales from the bottom of Old Main Hill, sledders are forced to take responsibility for their own actions, USU landscape manager Ellen Newell said.

"Person after person would sail down that hill and hit that concrete wall," Craig Simper, member of the university counsel said. "[Not having bales] forces you to think about the options and the consequences."

The decision to remove the bales — the first time USU has gone without some sort of safety precaution for sledders in decades — did not come easy.

"We just went around and round," Newell said. "No one could come up with a decision."From a legal standpoint, USU was beginning to look toward the possibly of liability from the school-sponsored bales, Simper said.

"This is a case of darned if you do, darned if you don't," he said.

Although Simper said no one has held USU responsible for injuries caused by the bales, he said some of the accidents were getting bad enough to make the university nervous about potential liability. He said USU has posted signs on the hill, warning people that they use the hill at their own risk, but then they put up the bales.

"By saying people should sled at their own risk and then putting up bales was saying [USU] was taking responsibility," he said.

Although Newell collaborated with Simper and the University Counsel, USU Police and Landscape Operations and Maintenance, she was ultimately responsible. Newell decided to go without the bales this year because more people were being injured by the straw barricades.

"People were led into the false assumption that these were soft bales of straw," Simper said. In addition to the threat of hitting a frozen wall, Newell said snowboarders were taking the bales apart to make jumps, leaving metal wires poking out.

Steve Mecham, USU police chief, reported that seven people were injured while sledding on Old Main Hill last year, four of which were caused by hitting the straw bales.

"When the water freezes, hitting those bales is like hitting concrete," Mecham said.

The injuries caused by the bales ranged from broken bones and head injuries to scratches and bruises. One of the worst, Mecham said, was when a parent depended on the bales to stop the sledding children, leaving one child with a broken femur.

"Last year was an exceptional year [for accidents]," Mecham said. "And some thought the bales were there to stop them."

Although the 2000-2001 sledding season may have been a hazardous one, past years have actually reported less accidents on Old Main Hill than this year, without the bales. This winter Mecham reported three have been injured on Old Main Hill, but those injuries happened long before sledders hit the bottom of the hill.

One injury was caused by hitting a tree, another when someone fell off a sled and the third was caused when someone went over a jump, Mecham said.

After the winter of 1999-2000, two injuries were acquired on the hill, one of which was by the bales. The previous year produced a similar report.

Simper, however, said the injuries caused by the bales were actually much more serious than the accidents which have happened this year.

"It wasn't so much the accidents but the nature of the accidents," he said. "I guess we'll live with the cuts and bruises. We're tying to avoid the catastrophe."

David Harston, assistant chief over EMS for the Logan Fire Department, said he doesn't have an opinion about the bales being set up on Old Main Hill.

When an ambulance is dispatched to the hill, it is the Logan Police Department and Harston's EMS team that responds to the call.

"I think it's kind of a toss up," Harston said. "Between a [straw] bale and a car, a [straw] bale will probably be safer, but that's not to say it's the answer."

Mecham and Newell said they are happy people are being more careful when they take to the hill. Parents no longer use the hill as a baby sitter, Newell said, and are staying at the bottom of the hill, catching their children when they zoom down.

"What I see is that everyone knows the curbs are there and the cars are there and they should put on the brakes before they get there," Mecham said.

Most parents who bring their kids to play on the hill say they'd act no differently if the bales were still set up.

Natalie Wilcox, a parent of a 6-and 4-year-old, took her daughters sledding on Old Main Hill for the first time Saturday. Her daughter's first attempt down the hill shocked her.

"I had no idea she was going to keep on going," Wilcox said.

Even though her daughter's first run sent the inner tube nearly into the road, Wilcox said she's much more comfortable being responsible for her children than depending on a straw bale.

Marlan Smith, a father of a helmeted 6-year-old sledder, said having straw bales might be a nice thing to have as back-up, but even if the bales were there, he said he'd be ready to catch his child at the bottom of the hill.

"It's kind of nice to have the [straw] bales there, just in case," Smith said. "I saw one kid fly out into the road when I got here."


© Copyright 2002 The Statesman