Tragically mundane

Phillip Hughes, the young Australian cricketer who was struck on the head by a delivery during a game on Tuesday, died today as a result of his injuries.  And the shock of his death is palpable.

This isn't the usual, empty and mawkish mourning for a famous person that one is living through vicariously though.  It's real shock.  The shock is bourne out of the innocuous and mundane nature of the event that killed this young man.  Basically put, he turned his back on a bouncer, as one is supposed to, and the ball struck him low down on the back of his neck.  The impact severed an artery, causing a massive bleed into the brain.  Hughes managed to stand for a few seconds after the impact before very dramatically collapsing to the ground.  It's clear now that he was beyond help even at that stage.

The seemingly ordinary nature of the delivery and the speed with which it killed him made this tragedy almost too much to process.  Hughes was just 25 years old.  The ball struck the one tiny part of his body that was unprotected and where a sufficiently violent contact could have caused serious injury.  Even then, the chances of the artery being completely ruptured by an impact were slight.  The unlikely nature of the chain of events has left everyone dumbfounded.

The match was being filmed, as it was a first-class fixture, and to see a young man struck down with such speed was unbearable.  We are all hanging by a thread; we all know this, at an intellectual, theoretic level at least.  But to have this principle demonstrated with such wanton and ruthless efficiency is too much.  It bespeaks a cruel universe, one with one no regard for human sentiment or emotion.  

I was reminded of the words of Randy Pausch, the professor of computer science, who shortly after being told his pancreatic cancer was terminal, delivered a lecture on the subject "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" to his students and colleagues.  Pausch mentioned that after his diagnosis people were keen to point out to him how unfair it was that a man of his relative youth should have been thus blighted.  But he dismissed this, replying "we are all in the crosshairs".  It's what happens to humans.  It's not unfair or fair: it just is.  It's a part of life, the quid pro quo, if you like.

There will be calls to change cricket no doubt, to ban quick deliveries, change the ball...whatever.  But this is to misread the event.  Phillip Hughes was killed by an extremely unlikely ocurrence, extremely unlikely.  This needs to be put into perspective.  People slip on icy pavements and are killed every winter, but we accept these tragedies, telling outselves that we would be more careful.  "It-won't-happen-to-me."  This is self-delusion.  What we mean is "I-hope-it-won't-happen-to-me".

More sportsmen and women will die in appalling circumstances in the future and this too is a part of life.  We're going to have face this again - an exhausting and disheartening prospect.