# Safety



## Dustincoc (May 8, 2008)

Anyone notice that the longer they do this, the more they become concerned with safety. Especially right around college graduation?

I've been thinking about safety a lot lately, which is very strange for me.


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## Spikesgirl (May 8, 2008)

Dustincoc said:


> Anyone notice that the longer they do this, the more they become concerned with safety. Especially right around college graduation?
> 
> I've been thinking about safety a lot lately, which is very strange for me.



Not everyone - I was hired originally for my drama assistant position, in part, because of my safety (and rigging) training. Safety on the stage and in the shop has always been a primary concern of mine. Worked 13 years in educational theater without major injury on my watch.


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## Radiant (May 8, 2008)

I know I've become far more safety conscious than I was when I started. In fact, one of my projects right now is putting on new male Edison plugs onto cords where I busted off the ground lug a few years ago. Turns out, that grounding thing is a good idea! I got rid of all my ungrounded extension cords, I'm about to rewire a horde of PAR 64s with flaky insulation, I just went back and re-clamped some PARs that looked a little iffy...


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## photoatdv (May 8, 2008)

I second that!!! I see new techs all the time that do STUPID stuff. The worst part is that it is usually the experienced people who know better who get hurt when something goes wrong. Example-- I have a scar from where the plate slipped and hit my hand while reweighting. Why was somebody not holding the plate? Because I was TRYING to show the two trainees helping me how to properly remove weights. They nearly caused disasters a few times. The best part--- they thought my hand looked cool! I got to go for now.


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## mnfreelancer (May 8, 2008)

My dad has an engineering degree and loves to build things and tinker so I grew up around power tools and open flames. From an early age I learned about these dangerous, sharp, fast moving machines, but NEVER before receiving an appropriate safety lecture and donning proper safety gear. Safety around dangerous situations became common sense to me in the process. When I got to HS in shop classes and in our scene shop it did shock me a bit to see people so fearless of the dangers that they would ignore even the most common sense practices like safety glasses and proper lifting technique. Luckily myself and others corrected those who were deficient early on and we headed off any significant accidents. I find that people have to be reminded on how high the stakes get when activity scales up to the size of a working professional theater, when a great deal of time pressure is added.


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## MNicolai (May 8, 2008)

mnfreelancer said:


> My dad has an engineering degree and loves to build things and tinker so I grew up around power tools and open flames. From an early age I learned about these dangerous, sharp, fast moving machines, but NEVER before receiving an appropriate safety lecture and donning proper safety gear. Safety around dangerous situations became common sense to me in the process. When I got to HS in shop classes and in our scene shop it did shock me a bit to see people so fearless of the dangers that they would ignore even the most common sense practices like safety glasses and proper lifting technique. Luckily myself and others corrected those who were deficient early on and we headed off any significant accidents. I find that people have to be reminded on how high the stakes get when activity scales up to the size of a working professional theater, when a great deal of time pressure is added.




Doesn't do you much good to lift properly _after_ you've had a hernia. That moral is across the board for safety though; _after_ the fact is too often too late to learn.

The worst part is people being oblivious to reality. We were tossing out some old 360Q's and fresnels in a dumpster and one of my crew members decided to take a lens and try and smash it in the dumpster. Two or three tries later she ended up with her hand gashed, came running down the hallway gushing blood, and ended up with 13 stitches in her hand. It gets worse though; this happened only 2 minutes after I walked away having told people to stop acting like morons and stay out of the dumpster.

Only time we've ever had to use a mop to clean up blood...


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## Grog12 (May 8, 2008)

What's funny is I worry now more about other people's saftey than I do my own.


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## Dustincoc (May 9, 2008)

Grog12 said:


> What's funny is I worry now more about other people's saftey than I do my own.



As do I, I'd rather get hurt than someone else, but that's not to say I like pain and injury.


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## icewolf08 (May 10, 2008)

I think that it goes both ways some people get more cocky and know-it-all as they progress. They feel like they have been doing this for years so they know what they are doing and they can do anything. Those are usually the people who end up doing something stupid and getting hurt.

Then there are the people who do pay attention to safety, and it is really important. As people were saying above, hindsight is 20/20, but if you had to have a serious injury to realize you were not being smart, that is bad.

As I am in a position where I have a lot of people who work under me, I am responsible for their safety. If I see people doing something unsafe I don't hesitate to tell them. If it is extremely unsafe you will hear me yell. I would rather it takes us extra hours to get the job done then to have to send someone to the ER.


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## lightbyfire (Feb 13, 2009)

I completely understand these sentiments and it is really encouraging to hear others share them. As I progressed through my senior year at school last year I actually took up a safety internship with the theatre department, and now I do safety and health fulltime (outside of theater unfortunately). But if it wasnt for my experience in theater and on this forum I am not sure I would have ended up where I am. So thank all of you who are engaging in safe practices and teaching it to others.


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## David Ashton (Feb 15, 2009)

Fear is a great safety incentive, fear of pain for myself, fear of legal action for the company and fear of having a guilty conscience if I allow a student/crew person to get injured.Fear has kept me safe for 40 years.


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## Les (Feb 15, 2009)

MNicolai said:


> The worst part is people being oblivious to reality. We were tossing out some old 360Q's and fresnels in a dumpster and one of my crew members decided to take a lens and try and smash it in the dumpster. Two or three tries later she ended up with her hand gashed, came running down the hallway gushing blood, and ended up with 13 stitches in her hand. It gets worse though; this happened only 2 minutes after I walked away having told people to stop acting like morons and stay out of the dumpster.
> 
> Only time we've ever had to use a mop to clean up blood...



I cringe more to the fact that these lights could have potentially been repaired! Next time, send 'em to me! ;-) I could use some Altmans to cannibalize off of.


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## themuzicman (Feb 16, 2009)

In high school, I'd do whatever it take to get a show done, regardless of safety. It was the pride of knowing that I put in everything I had, with so few resources. The risks were what made it fun!

Now in college, I was asked to do something last week that I thought I could do, got up like 20 feet in the lift and realized that I could do it, but it would either break something and hurt me, or freak me out more than I cared to be. So, I said no.

That was the first time I had said No to something asked of me for a show, and it was kind of interesting, everyone understood, and we found an alternative method of doing it.


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## ReiRei (Feb 16, 2009)

themuzicman said:


> In high school, I'd do whatever it take to get a show done, regardless of safety. It was the pride of knowing that I put in everything I had, with so few resources. The risks were what made it fun!



After a year of being in my high school theatre, I started watching what other people would do and some of it scared me. Things like carrying a source four up to the dimmer room by climbing up through the voms with only one hand available instead of taking the stairwell. Or not uncle buddying something because it's only a little bit out of weight. 

During my second show, I came into a build call and was painting the Little Shop sign. It was going good when I suddenly felt something really sharp hit the back of my head. Two of the new techs had been playing with a pneumatic staple gun and shot it off in my direction. Staple didn't go too far into my head, but far enough to be painful while pulling it out. When I see people playing with equipment like that, I freak out. And I tell that story to all the new technician, every semester...

Yesterday, my master electrician and the assisstant stage manager came in buzzed... I was pissed, and I let them have it. My ME and I were supposed to hang lights on the catwalks... above actors and other people... but I ended up doing it by myself because there was no way i would let her up there. *shakes head* Needless to say that she didn't come in that way today and never will again. I wonder if this kind of thing happens anywhere else... I surely hope that this is just a high school thing. sigh...


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## DaveySimps (Feb 16, 2009)

ReiRei said:


> Or not uncle buddying something



Can't say I am familiar with the term. I am pretty sure I know what you are referring to, but care to elaborate? Or maybe share the story behind the term?

~Dave


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## derekleffew (Feb 16, 2009)

See this thread: http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/scenery/551-rigging-question-tieing-off-line-set.html, specifically post#11.


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## DaveySimps (Feb 16, 2009)

Thanks!

~Dave


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## ReiRei (Feb 16, 2009)

DaveySimps said:


> Can't say I am familiar with the term. I am pretty sure I know what you are referring to, but care to elaborate? Or maybe share the story behind the term?
> 
> ~Dave


Oh, I'm sorry. This is what it looks like and we use them whenever we reweight.


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## DaveySimps (Feb 16, 2009)

Thanks for the pictures. I am familiar with the technique, just not the term.

~Dave


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## gafftapegreenia (Feb 16, 2009)

Oh THAT is what that thing is called!


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## avkid (Feb 16, 2009)

ReiRei said:


> Yesterday, my master electrician and the assistant stage manager came in buzzed...


 Excuse me??????


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## photoatdv (Feb 17, 2009)

Well if it makes you feel better I just found out that my volunteers from some of the dance shows have been high. Apparently one of them decided to bring something and next thing you know everyone except the pros and hired students were high. Totally thrilled! NOT!!! Might explain some of dumb stuff that the volunteers did on those shows. Like independent study flyman training and trying to take apart gear without permission and trying to reweight stuff when they'd already been told to wait for me to get up there and aknowledging our flyman when he told us to hold but not stopping or telling me (as for why there were untrained volunteers up there is another story, but it revolved around the other trained student skipping out to go on a date-- or maybe he was high too).


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## What Rigger? (Feb 18, 2009)

photoatdv said:


> Well if it makes you feel better I just found out that my volunteers from some of the dance shows have been high. Apparently one of them decided to bring something and next thing you know everyone except the pros and hired students were high. Totally thrilled! NOT!!! Might explain some of dumb stuff that the volunteers did on those shows. Like independent study flyman training and trying to take apart gear without permission and trying to reweight stuff when they'd already been told to wait for me to get up there and aknowledging our flyman when he told us to hold but not stopping or telling me (as for why there were untrained volunteers up there is another story, but it revolved around the other trained student skipping out to go on a date-- or maybe he was high too).



((stunned, but not at all suprised, silence.)) It even happens on the pro level. LOTS!


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## ReiRei (Feb 18, 2009)

NOOOOOOOOO!!! *cries and bangs head on keyboard* jghjagrkhjbfndgfkjl!!!


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