# Rigger dies working on early Super Bowl preparations



## gafftaper (Jan 15, 2015)

A 31 year male old rigger fell 35 feet to his death in Phoenix. Early stories said he fell from a stage, but later stories say he fell off of the arch structure below while doing preparation work for the 2015 Super Bowl. There are very few details at this point, they haven't even released his name. The police say it was not a criminal act and that they will be releasing no further information as it's now a closed investigation by the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

This local news story has the best information I can find. 

My thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and family of our fallen brother.


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## gafftaper (Jan 15, 2015)

As a side note, while reading about this, I've read/heard the same somewhat odd definition of a rigger on multiple news outlets. "He specialized in moving large heavy objects high above the ground". While yes that's part of what a rigger does, there's a lot more to it than just moving heavy things. In fact much of the time, riggers don't want heavy things to move at all. Weird. I bet they all just looked up rigger on Wikipedia.


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## JD (Jan 15, 2015)

Retired now, but looking back- How many times have we paused for a second, looked down and thought, "My God, what am I doing up here?" You can't think of it for more than a passing second but especially on outdoor builds there is very little room for even the slightest mistake. I think back to the 70's and 80's when there were very few (enforced) regulations and thank God I lived. Recently, my wife quit her job and retired. She was in retail sales, had recently had a heart attack. They were asking her to climb a 12 foot ladder and change ceiling lights. They told her it was now part of her job. Didn't blink an eye when she told me as I don't blame her. 35 sounds like a small number, yet statistics show that a flat fall off a six foot ladder has a 50% mortality rate. My prayers are with this person and their family.


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## What Rigger? (Jan 15, 2015)

Good points, JD. The last OSHA report I saw (and this was more than 4 years ago...but I'm sticking with it), stated that 80% of all falls reported in the workplace over 6 feet were fatal. Our thoughts do indeed go out to the family and friends of the deceased worker. And like I've ranted before: it's a job, it's not worth your life. Think, train, and if you have any doubts- don't do it.


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## StradivariusBone (Jan 15, 2015)

I'm always reminded of my time working as a cable monkey at a phone company in my high school days and falling out of a drop ceiling off a 10' ladder. At the time I thought nothing of it and shook off the large contusion on my thigh as a battle scar, but looking back and seeing the OSHA data on falls 6'+, it scares the heck out of me. I share that with my students when we start talking about taking care at heights. About 90% of them end up with a healthy fear/respect of height and do fine, but I worry about the ones that get super-confident in their own abilities and take chances.


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## ruinexplorer (Jan 15, 2015)

From FB stagehand page:


> RIP Ryan “Scrappy” Lipman
> It has been widely posted since yesterday that we lost another member of our Crew Family due to an accident at the Super Bowl Site in Arizona.
> There have been many stories posted around, however those that loved him and were close to him wanted the truth to get out so everyone would understand what really happened.
> 
> ...


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## cmckeeman (Jan 15, 2015)

gafftaper said:


> As a side note, while reading about this, I've read/heard the same somewhat odd definition of a rigger on multiple news outlets. "He specialized in moving large heavy objects high above the ground". While yes that's part of what a rigger does, there's a lot more to it than just moving heavy things. In fact much of the time, riggers don't want heavy things to move at all. Weird. I bet they all just looked up rigger on Wikipedia.



This one hits close to home for me, I had met and worked with Scrappy in AZ and i have worked quite a bit with his brother.


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## gafftaper (Jan 16, 2015)

@cmckeeman It seems like every time one of these happens, someone around CB knows the person and that makes the whole thing more real and a lot closer than just a name on a page. 

Again condolences.


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## venuetech (Jan 17, 2015)

my uncle a mechanic for a trucking company had a fall off a 6' ladder. spiral fracture in the leg. Underwent some sort of reconstructive surgery, picked up a staph infection at the hospital, the leg never fully healed, after a number of procedures to save the leg it had to be amputated five years after the fall.


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