Terrible news. System Administrator and author of the O'Reilly title Building Community Wireless Networks has been seriously injured falling two stories whilst attempting to mount an wireless antenna to a rooftop.
James Stevens & I had the pleasure of meeting him at the Seattle wireless summit in Jan.
Be really careful out there guys & gals ...
Update [2002-2-26 12:29:10 by vortex]: Rob's now out of hospital, and in reportedly in good spirits, taking it easy at home.
Update [2002-4-20 13:49:18 by vortex]: Rob's now returned to contributing to community wireless forums. Some pictures have been released of Rob's nasty wounds. Good to see you back, Rob
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Subject: Rob Flickenger hospitalized. :-(
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 15:03:53 -0800
From: Schuyler Erle
At about 8pm PST on Wed. Feb 20, our very own Rob Flickenger accidentally
fell from the roof of a two-story building, while attempting to set up a
point-to-point 802.11b link here in Sebastopol. He was immediately taken to
the hospital, where he was underwent surgery for severe internal injuries. He
has since been taken out of intensive care, and is in stable condition. Rob
is safe in the company of family and friends, and is expected to be released
from the hospital in a week or so.
First, *please* be careful when doing this sort of field work. Our community
almost lost a brilliant contributor and advocate (and a great friend, to
boot), due to a simple accident. I really don't want to see this happen to
anyone else. I'll say it again: Please be careful when setting up antennas,
et cetera. No amount of bandwidth is worth your physical harm, so don't you
be a martyr to the cause! :-)
Second, if you'd like to send cards or whatever, I'm sure Rob would be
grateful to hear from a community he's given so much to. He can be reached
c/o O'Reilly & Associates, 1005 Gravenstein Hwy N, Sebastopol, CA 95472.
Feel free to be creative, but please don't send antennas -- we don't want to
encourage him any further. ;-)
Of course, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me or
Nate or Adam F., especially since Rob won't be answering his e-mail for a
little while. Please feel free to forward this news wherever you think it
appropriate.
Thanks.
SDE
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