# Your worst theatre injury



## Techiegirly

What is the worst thing you've hurt yourself doing? What was the outcome?

I'd have to say my worst injury would be when I was first starting out in theatre and I ran my foot over with a Genie lift. I had to go to the hospital and get x-rays to make sure nothing was broken and then I had a bruise under my toe nails that lasted months.

This comes in close for second place, I've gotten shards of metal in my eyes on two seperate occasions, once landing me in UCLA medical center. Good times!

Your turn...


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## Van

Not including the long time permanent brain damaging life style inherent in being a technician in the first place and excluding the harm I've caused my bank account over the years, I'd have to say it was the time I "Makita'd " my Left hand. Long story short, I buried a Phillips bit into the palm of my left hand doing something really stupid, which seemed perfectly logical, at the time. Woke up the next morning with a claw instead of a hand and it took two days for the tendons to relax enough that I could open my hand. Luckily I missed the major nerves.


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## jmabray

Only a theatre injury because thats where I was at the time. Walking down the stairs towards the back deck at SFO at 3 am. Hit the last step funny on my left foot and popped all three tendons in my ankle. Good Times!


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## What Rigger?

Rope burns on my hands. Allllll the time (flying effects, you know?) But not so much recently, I've toughened up.

A 10 foot stack of nine aluminum i-beams dropped on my foot by some stupid f*cking stoner shop guy. D*uche. And my then employer wanted to NOT have me go to the doctor so their insurance premium wouldn't go up. Uh, that'd be a 'no', Robert.

Two 20 lbs crates lowered quickly onto my head from 15 feet on an old school 3:1 block and fall. Ambulance trip was cool, and the nurse was cute!

Almost had a foot crushed/amputated on "EFX" at the MGM Grand...but I knew how long I had to step out so that don't really count.


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## soundlight

Let's see...two worst - got an aluminum riser dropped on my toe - still have black blood from that under my toenail, even though it happened 3 months ago...also, I ran a screw halfway through my finger (almost to the bone) before realizing that I couldn't move my finger out from behind the board that I was attaching...that might be the worst one, it hurt sharply for a while, and I had a dull pain afterwards for a month.


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## Logos

At the end of a long (very long) day I stepped out of a genie that I was convinced was at floor level. It wasn't. Fell 10 - 12 feet. Amazingly I got up and walked away and did my back in half an hour later lifting one stage weight.
Connected?
Probably.


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## gafftapegreenia

Nothing too bad yet. Just many, many scars on my knuckles from screws, rough wood, knobs, handles, shutters and all those other things that attack your hands. Also had a nice gouge in my forearm once from an angle iron proscenium ladder.


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## avkid

Hmm...
Staples through my finger(still a bit nerve damaged)

Broken toe courtesy of steel stage weights
(switched to steel caps a week later)

Various muscle strains and dis-located limbs


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## Techiegirly

Oh yeah! A few of you guys reminded me of the time I Makita'ed my own finger. I was bending over, screwing hundreds of deck screws into a stage. After awhile it became mindless work which probably caused me to slip and put a screw into my pointer finger. I got to go to the hospital and get a tetnis shot. Wee!

I think that puts me @ 3 times for going to the hosiptal for work injuries.


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## icewolf08

I once stood up under an HVAC duct in a catwalk, and apparently I cut my head open. I didn't notice at the time, just thought I bumped my head. Well we finished striking lights and lowering them to the floor and were about to climb out of the catwalk when I ran my hand through my hair, and lo-and-behold there was blood (this was an hour later). So, I came down from the catwalk told the TD who promptly sent me to the hospital. Turned out it wasn't that big a cut (I think the doctor said about an inch long), but you know head injuries bleed a lot so they look worse than they are sometimes.


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## Van

charcoaldabs said:


> Uh, quite recently actually... I got a splinter. It wasn't a big one, or a deep one, but I didn't notice it till I was driving home. See, the splinter was on my hand, and I was turning the wheel, and I was like "Hmm, what was that slightly discomforting pain in hand?". So then at the next red-light I looked at my hand, and I had a small splinter, so I took it out with my other hand.
> 
> <Hoping not to add "Fell out of ceiling of 100 year old theatre and died." to the list.>


 
Ummm I didn't count all the splinters in the list of injuries. So far, this year, the winner is a splinter I got last week while slipping behind some platforms. It went through my jeans, right into the middle of my thigh, worst thing was I had to finish what I was doing before I could get up and try to dig it out. Well I finally got to the restroom, of course it had broken off under my jeans so that the 1/8 of an inch or so that was left above the skin could catch on the fabric everytime I took a step, I had to use my Gerber pliers to yank the thing out it was a good 3/16" in diameter and about 1 1/2" long it went straight in. I don't usually say this about splinters, but, Ouch!


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## jwl868

The worst I ever did (but then i'm only involved in a couple shows a year) was strain my lower back muscles while lifting my own toolbox into my car. Put me out of commission for a day and in a bit of pain for a week.

(Soapbox: While near-misses often make for good stories, they are often just sheer luck that they weren’t worse. Just about all of the above could have been prevented by the individual, [but a few had “help” from others]. Practice safe work habits.)

Joe


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## gafftaper

To use Ship's term, I "Makita'd" my thumb nail. I was on a ladder, reaching out to the edge of my range to put a 3" screw into something. Due to the weird angle I was exerting pressure on it, the screw bent, started to spin wonky, and through the drill out and straight into the thumbnail that had been holding the screw in place seconds before. I had a disgusting looking dried blood Phillips tip crack through the center of my thumb nail for a couple of months. 

Like JWL just said... All I needed to do was move the ladder over two feet and this would have never happened. 

Moral of this thread, wear you safety goggles, gloves, and steel toes! Move the ladder, don't lean! The vast majority of injuries can be prevented with good safety habits.


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## punktech

i crushed my thumb once. we were taking apart the crappy risers in the blackbox we have and one portion of them was put together in an annoying yet not shoddy way (the screws were supposed to be sunk from the outside but these ones were sunk from inside the risers). so we resorted to the quick and effective method of taking something apart...sledgehammers! well, being an upperclassman and all, i have to look cool while doing everything (this was the logic then, i learned my lesson) so i was swinging in a particularly fashionable and effective manner, when the head slipped off the shaft of the hammer, and my thumb got to be quite intimate with the board i was annihilating seconds before hand and the shaft of the hammer it was gripped around. there was blood, there was a cracked finger nail, there was excruciating pain, and there was a hospital visit. amazingly through all of this i said not single swear word. the pain was so intense that i was shaking uncontrollably, but i never said an expletive. i never knew one attain a level of injury surpassing the ability to utter curses...


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## erosing

I've pretty much had all the accidents happen to me, by my fault or anothers, a few things just can't be explained still...but if you can name it there is a very good chance that it's happened to me, and what hasn't happened has come extremely close to happening...

Trips to the hospital = 6 
Trips to the doctor(not including hospital) = 7

Yeah...not something I'm proud of, but things seem to happen...

However, my best one was not knowing I had cut my leg and finding out ~8 hours later give or take, because my shoes started leaking blood, ruined a good sock in the process...didn't care too much about the shoes though, they were already on their way to the trash.


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## gafftaper

Logos said:


> At the end of a long (very long) day I stepped out of a genie that I was convinced was at floor level. It wasn't. Fell 10 - 12 feet. Amazingly I got up and walked away and did my back in half an hour later lifting one stage weight.



You're lucky you live down under where gravity works in the other direction. You could have gotten seriously hurt up here on the top side of the world. 

(p.s. nice use of the imperial measurement system... was it "easier". I'm whispering so AVKid doesn't throw another hissy fit)


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## PadawanGeek

Hmm, I haven't been injured much... the worst thing that happened to me was putting my whole hand on the back of a PAR 46 that had been burning for approx. 2hrs..... had an annoying and hurting burn for a few weeks.


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## meghan

Okay I've been really lucky so far that I've never really hurt myself while working in a theatre. You see i'm a pretty clumsy person the kind of person that trips walking upstairs... never broken anything I've been carrying when I do trip. I managed to pull something in my knee while walking to class and now I get to wear a lovely brace for the next couple of days. Off to go study for finals.


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## Scrumptusbrisket

Lets seem, i stapled my finger when trying to fix a broken staple gun. (Bad idea, shouldve unloaded it). I dewalt-ed my finger (im liking this term) when i was trying to screw into some masonite w/out predrilling, not something id recommend. The long and short of it was i was pushing w/ full body weight and slipped. So i now have a cool + shaped scar on my finger from the bit. lets see.... Grabbed an uninsulated edison to stage pin converter when the power was on, dumb idea. Thats all i can remember for now, but theres probably more.


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## bcfcst4

My worst theater injury had little to do with theater but occured in one on my way in for the day. (and it was really dumb). My friend used to walk along the arm rests in the house, and I'd hold her hand to make sure she didn't fall. Of course one day she did, and didn't let go of my hand. My wrist did some odd twisting dance on her way down, and now, thanks to some "soft tissue damage" at the time, I'll have tendonitis in my wrist for the rest of my life.

Other than that it's mostly the occasionaly screw going into the hand or smashing fingers between platforms.


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## gafftaper

Scrumptusbrisket said:


> Grabbed an uninsulated edison to stage pin converter when the power was on, dumb idea.



Why was it on... and for that matter why was it even in the theater? 

Perhaps one of the best examples so far of how a few basic safety procedures can prevent terrible injuries.

Did you throw it away afterward or at least go nuts on it with E-tape?


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## Charc

gafftaper said:


> Why was it on... and for that matter why was it even in the theater?
> Perhaps one of the best examples so far of how a few basic safety procedures can prevent terrible injuries.
> Did you throw it away afterward or at least go nuts on it with E-tape?



I think he got it from the same place Alex got his gold-plated edison>XLR, or whatever crazy adapter he has hanging on his office door.


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## TheatreSM88

My worst theatre injurys include:

1st semester at college my tech director ran a 4x8 platform pit cover into my foot bent my toes back. that was fun......

This year within the last month and a half. I have pneumatically nailed my middle finger on my left hand. The nail went into the skin the flesh part where my fingerprint is. It was not bad enough to go to the er. But three weeks after that I was moving a piece of aluminium pipe the fence posting kind. I sliced that same finger in the same place only a much longer deeper cut. I just got the 4 stitches out last Friday!


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## sloop

Broken ankle due to faulty ladder. the rung on a ladder was faulty, it went and I went down breaking my ankle. I was back to work that night in an air cast..

Worst injury on the job--motorcycle wreck. I was running after a part and hit grease at an intersection(from a restaurant recycle truck). Tore out my ACL... Only Workmans Comp on the books at the university for a motorcycle wreck.....


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## Scrumptusbrisket

yea, it was patched into one of our worklight circuits, not in the main board so it wasnt turned off. Turns out it was wired by some freshmen. figures. And after that happened i taped the sh*t outa it and had a little talk w/ the lighting techs.


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## Charc

Scrumptusbrisket said:


> yea, it was patched into one of our worklight circuits, not in the main board so it wasnt turned off. Turns out it was wired by some freshmen. figures. And after that happened i taped the sh*t outa it and had a little talk w/ the lighting techs.



There is something to be said for having all student generated work in the electrics dept checked by faculty, or a "competent person". I pitty the fool trying to use this inventory after I leave.  (In all seriousness though, I believe my work to be of acceptable, but not good calibre. It's at least better than the condition I find it in.)


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## bobgaggle

Techiegirly said:


> I ran my foot over with a Genie lift. I had to go to the hospital and get x-rays to make sure nothing was broken



Yeah you're girly...genie (the big center wheel) over my foot, as well as a baby grand piano while moving it off the school stage because our retarded chorus is full of women who can't push their d**n instrument.

GOOD ADVICE-- leave your shoe on. the sock acts like a neat little bandage while the blood clots. the only problem is getting your sock off once the red stuff turns brown... Just walk it off like a man


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## PadawanGeek

last night I was working and some guy intentionally hit me with a metal pole in the face. blood was gushing everywhere and when I went to ER last night I got four stitches... in hurts really bad and people are trying to make me smile but it hurts really bad to smile


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## avkid

PadawanGeek said:


> lsome guy intentionally hit me with a metal pole in the face.


Excuse me?


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## Charc

Was it an actor? Or a sound guy? 

(Just kidding, avkid.)


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## avkid

charcoaldabs said:


> Was it an actor? Or a sound guy?
> (Just kidding, avkid.)


Probably a rigger, they like to play with metal stuff.
Or an angry old carpenter.


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## Smurphy

I have not yet received an injury worth reporting, (I'm sure that is a good thing and I hope it keeps up.) But I do have another that is. My mentor was cutting wood for a set piece, and was working with a table saw. I'm not sure the exact specifics, but one minute he's cutting the next he walks outside with a bleeding finger. "I think I need to go to the hospital" This is what he says when he gets out after bleeding all over the place. The end result a couple of screws in his finger. As for the set piece they decided not to use it, but we did keep the blade, it now hangs in the shop as a reminder.


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## soundlight

Smurphy said:


> I have not yet received an injury worth reporting, (I'm sure that is a good thing and I hope it keeps up.) But I do have another that is. My mentor was cutting wood for a set piece, and was working with a table saw. I'm not sure the exact specifics, but one minute he's cutting the next he walks outside with a bleeding finger. "I think I need to go to the hospital" This is what he says when he gets out after bleeding all over the place. The end result a couple of screws in his finger. As for the set piece they decided not to use it, but we did keep the blade, it now hangs in the shop as a reminder.


Could've been prevented with this.


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## Van

PadawanGeek said:


> last night I was working and some guy intentionally hit me with a metal pole in the face. blood was gushing everywhere and when I went to ER last night I got four stitches... in hurts really bad and people are trying to make me smile but it hurts really bad to smile


 
Ok I'm intrigued and I have to ask, What's he look like now?


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## gafftaper

avkid said:


> Probably a rigger, they like to play with metal stuff.
> Or an angry old carpenter.



So Phil are you accusing WhatRigger? or Van... I suppose both are likely to snap at any moment.


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## PadawanGeek

avkid said:


> Excuse me?



Yes, intentionally. The kid thought it might be fun to chase me around with the pole. So then he was wavin it around and i started walkin away and he said hey and I turned around an wham there was blood all over


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## PadawanGeek

Van said:


> Ok I'm intrigued and I have to ask, What's he look like now?



What do I look like or what does the kid look like? maybe I'll post a picture of my lip...


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## Van

PadawanGeek said:


> What do I look like or what does the kid look like? maybe I'll post a picture of my lip...


Oh I was talking about the other kid. If someone whacked me across the face with a steel pole on purpose, you could bet they'd wind up looking at least as bad.


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## avkid

Van said:


> Oh I was talking about the other kid. If someone whacked me across the face with a steel pole on purpose, you could bet they'd wind up looking at least as bad.


And locked in the storage closet in the basement for a while to play with the ghosts.


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## Capi

The worst that comes to my mind happened the night before Tech Saturday of our latest show. A few of us were there real late finishing up (actually we pulled an all-nighter). The LD was writing cues so it was dark, but I had a flashlight, so it was no big deal. I was putting up a platform for a small followspot behind the seating (Black box theater). I knelt down in the dark to get under the seating to screw the platform to the seating (not looking where I was kneeling) and I knelt onto a nail sticking out of a stored step unit. It hurt. I swore. But it didn't even leave a decent scar. 

Of course, I've also had my fair share of screw bits to the fingers (scar on my thumb from one) and splinters. And then there are the small burns from focusing Fresnels. All in all though, I try to be a pretty safe worker.


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## PadawanGeek

avkid said:


> And locked in the storage closet in the basement for a while to play with the ghosts.



That's what I should have done... but it was church so I had to be holy...


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## Toffee

Mm, I would have to say my worst injury would have to be the one that left me with a bad back injury that I still have. We used to have this old shaky wooden 12 foot ladder. I was on the top rung and was working on some lights on the extremes of our arena theatre, I had not really been drinking as much water as I should have remind you, so I black out and wake up on the bottom of the ladder with my boss standing over me asking if I am alright. Then getting in a car accident on a freeway doing a 360 and slamming into the center divider a few months later didn't help my back at all.

And then there was the table saw injury, I was cutting a piece of 3/4 ply for a shelf we were making a shelf for a projector, I think it was gonna be like 1 foot x 1 foot or something. I don't remember the exacts. But any way, I was cutting the ply wood for the shelf and, I guess my grip was not that great or something, but the piece lifted off the table spun around on the blade and shot back hitting me in the hip.


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## punktech

i thought about some more of mine. 

various knee pain (i have pre-wrecked knees though from soccer) from jumping down or up on to things. i have a tendency to misjudge how tall a stage is and whack my knee on the deck when i jump from the house. 

this summer i managed to minorly drill/screw into my hand nearly every day it seemed.

i've chipped too many bones to count too. best one was the first, my arm was chipped when i whacked it on a S4. it swelled up to a nice goose-egg on my arm and was red, then black and blue and then the black and blue faded to the cool colors like purple and that funky green...it was delicious.


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## thelightguy87

I had a cordless drill dropped from 15ft high onto my shoulder, fell half an inch away from my forehead. Gave me a gash in my shoulder and had to get 8 stitches.


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## lcthebeast

i was picking up the trap door with a friend of mine so we could drop some platforms down into there. we were walking downstage with it and my friend decided to walk back and pull me for some reason. i hit the stage floor, and then dropped down 9ft to the pit floor. I spent 2 weeks in a wheel chair since i had a hairline fracture on my hand and sprained my foot. I would have been able to walk if the arch or my foot didn't grow out past the ball and heel of my foot.


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## DarSax

Pretty much my fault. Was working a young kids show during the summer at my old high school, went to plug in the fresnel, didn't notice until the last second that the plug was cracked and broken. Was shocked for a good 20-30 seconds, couldn't let go. I could feel my torso muscles clenching/unclenching like in the cartoons. All I could do was go "ahhhhhHHHHHH" in increasing volume until my hand shot away.

And then of course the little kids came and were like "oh my gosh what happened?!?!?" and I had to sheepishly explain. 

First chance I got, I took my leatherman to it and killed the plug. I think I have it in my room somewhere.


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## Brilliant2007

I was fumbling around in the dark in the trap room of an unfamiliar theater, I can’t remember what I was doing but I’m sure it sounded like a good idea at the time! Anyways, I walked off the edge and fell about 15’ into the bottom of the orchestra pit lift! I was scared you know what when it happened as I had no idea where I was going. If you have ever had a similar fall you know what I’m talking about, it was a LONG 1-2 seconds. I thought I was a goner! I got up and climbed out. Luckily someone else was there to help me. I’m still amazed that I wasn’t hurt with the exception of a few bruises. Once the lights were on, I went back to take a look at where I fell and I had just missed landing on a bunch of gear/equipment that probably would have caused serious injury. Never again will I walk around in the dark in an unfamiliar space. Even if you think you know your way around, you never know if someone else has been in there and moved things around. Now, if I would have been carrying my flashlight…


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## SerraAva

I was up on the grid hanging a trap door for a projector for Ragtime. Finished securing the pulleys and running the tie line for it and was heading for the ladder. I looked down to make sure I didn't fall down the hole in the grid for where the cables run down to the battens. Well, some genius designed it so that happened right under an I-beam, and last time I checked, I can't look in two directions at once as much as I try . So my head smacked into the I-beam and I ended up with a dent and a few staples in my head for my trouble. Not really that bad when you think about it since I could've been knocked out by it.


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## midgetgreen11

um let's see, i burnt myself focusing a leko, a genie lowered into my head, and i was drilling a screw into a two by four when the drill skipped off the scre and went through my hand, bandaid: those gross school brown paper towels and masking tape. 

probably the most harmful thing, my mind ending up in the gutter after "that's what she said" jokes


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## Van

midgetgreen11 said:


> ....................probably the most harmful thing, my mind ending up in the gutter after "that's what she said" jokes


 
That's not an injury that's a perk.

We use, "....said the actress to the bishop."
Or my favorite, " that reminds me of a girl I knew in high school...."


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## Eboy87

Van said:


> That's not an injury that's a perk.




said the actress to the bishop.


I couldn't resist.


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## Logos

Eboy87 said:


> I couldn't resist.



As the bishop said to the actress. LOL


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## Eboy87

Touché sir.


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## mixmaster

Got into an argument with the insides of a jammed up cable spool. Big cable spool, loaded with most of 250 feet of a 56 pair FOH snake. I won but sliced the back of my finger open from the bottom knuckle to the nail, down to the bone. Wrapped it with gaff tape, did the show, got a tetanus shot the next day. I think taking off the gaff tape hurt the worst. It's been 12 years, still have the scar.


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## BillESC

The worst injury was not my own.

In 1972 I was working Props for the load in of "On the Town" at the Imperial Theatre in NYC. We were making cotton candy cones stage right when I heard a scream and looked up in the direction it came from. I saw a man falling from the grid. He bounced off a flown set piece about 40' off of the deck and tumbled to the floor.

EMT's were called and he was taken to the hospital. He did not survive.


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## Charc

BillESC said:


> The worst injury was not my own.
> In 1972 I was working Props for the load in of "On the Town" at the Imperial Theatre in NYC. We were making cotton candy cones stage right when I heard a scream and looked up in the direction it came from. I saw a man falling from the grid. He bounced off a flown set piece about 40' off of the deck and tumbled to the floor.
> EMT's were called and he was taken to the hospital. He did not survive.



I hope everyone remembers this story when they next make the decision wether or not to clip-in. Even if not for yourself, inevitably you will be working at height with people below you, I'd rather not have Alex, or worse, Derek fall on top of me! :shock:


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## icewolf08

charcoaldabs said:


> I hope everyone remembers this story when they next make the decision wether or not to clip-in. Even if not for yourself, inevitably you will be working at height with people below you, I'd rather not have Alex, or worse, Derek fall on top of me! :shock:


Out of curiosity, how did you come to pick those two people to make examples of?


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## Charc

icewolf08 said:


> Out of curiosity, how did you come to pick those two people to make examples of?



Last two people I PMed, freshest in the mind.


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## Van

charcoaldabs said:


> Last two people I PMed, freshest in the mind.


You'd probably rather have Alex fall on you than me.
'though who knows? I might bounce, as I'm rather Bumble-ish.


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## Logos

I can come and fall on people for you if you like. When I lie on the beach greepeace has been known to come and try and refloat me.


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## len

Just diagnosed with a torn meniscus in my knee (which is redundant because the meniscus is only in the knee). Could have been work related but I can't be sure. Anyway, first injury that kept me out of work. Surgery in a couple weeks.


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## leistico

Ironically in 22 years of tech I've never had a tech-related injury, though I have banged myself up good when I was acting -- once, in a chase scene, when my foot slipped on the edge of a platform and I buried the corner of that platform into my shin, and once in a fight scene where a punch and a block of that punch were off by a split second. The pinky finger on my right hand...well, it used to be straight  Now it's a reminder to me to rehearse the living s*** out of any physical scene.


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## Charc

leistico said:


> Ironically in 22 years of tech I've never had a tech-related injury, though I have banged myself up good when I was acting -- once, in a chase scene, when my foot slipped on the edge of a platform and I buried the corner of that platform into my shin, and once in a fight scene where a punch and a block of that punch were off by a split second. The pinky finger on my right hand...well, it used to be straight  Now it's a reminder to me to rehearse the living s*** out of any physical scene.



Did you do quarter, half, three-quarter?


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## bcfcst4

Not that this is precisely what this thread is asking... but any advice for an accident prone kid? Last show he banged his head into our sound storage cabinent and got a few stitches on his forehead, this show he fell off a ladder (possible wrist injury, i'm not sure, it happened today). I keep trying to get him to cool it a bit, because I think he gets hurt because he's very... well, I like to call him a NAFOD [No Apparent Fear Of Death (or Danger)]. Any advice?

-edit- it's official, fractured wrist.


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## Charc

bcfcst4 said:


> Not that this is precisely what this thread is asking... but any advice for an accident prone kid? Last show he banged his head into our sound storage cabinent and got a few stitches on his forehead, this show he fell off a ladder (possible wrist injury, i'm not sure, it happened today). I keep trying to get him to cool it a bit, because I think he gets hurt because he's very... well, I like to call him a NAFOD [No Apparent Fear Of Death (or Danger)]. Any advice?



Only use electricians that don't do so well with heights? 

(In all seriousness, I just need some time to adjust to the safety level of some environments. Not that I spaz attack or something as in a fear of heights, I just won't work in environments outside of my comfort level, though after assimilating to them, it's never really that bad. Though I've seen someone in a large regional theatre bound eight feet away from the catwalk on top of cheesboroughed pipes, while dodging load bearing roof support, I'm not about to take chase. Now with some fall arrest in there, it doesn't really matter now, does it?)

Back to topic, I'm not sure there's a good answer. If these incidents don't make him think twice about doing X or Y, I'm not sure what will... give him a car, see how long he lasts.


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## Logos

I like you don't so much have a fear of heights but I do have a healthy regard for the danger of heights. I must be on something that I trust and I must feel safe.
I think it's a safety feature built in to me by the Creator.


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## gafftapegreenia

I know what you mean there Logos. On good catwalks with handrails, I have not a problem. I used to have a problem with grids, I've gotten over that but still like to have my boots on. I won't walk on a grid in my Converse. Now, put me on the roof of my house, and we will have a problem.


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## deadlygopher

I'm not sure I want to publicly admit this but I was on a ladder hanging an ellipse in our black box. Then I was on the floor. (10 foot fall) Thankfully the safety cable was on the light when I went down. Not a good day. I wasn't really hurt though.


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## CynicWhisper

Of all the various things I've carried and worked on, my downfall was a **** folding table. I was just putting it away and the kid at the other end of the table didn't foot it and the table slammed right onto my foot. Now, it wasn't so bad until a week later when I did a 17 hour load-in/out for a huge new year's eve party. Only during the last hour of the load-out did I begin to realize that doing 17 hours of lifting speakers heavier than me up and down three flights of stairs on a hairline fracture makes the average foot exceedingly unhappy. So a "probably bruised" foot went to a "severely broken and surgically titaniumed foot very quickly thanks to a **** table from the theatre christmas party. *eyeroll* But, if anyone's wondering, I did find a way to climb ladders with a light in my hand even with the broken foot and my biceps are significantly larger than before. 

Cynic: 1 Universe: 0


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## Einarin

I wasn't really injured in this, but it was a crazy story with almost a lot of injury.
My third show ever, we were replacing house lights. One had it's base unseated. Our house is a suspended tile celing with the catwalks and roof above. I decided that it would be a good idea to make a loop of steel cable and hang it from the rebar supporting the roof. I got the cable hung, and crouching in the loop set to work on the light. I was just done fixing it and was reassembling it when I shifted and lost my grip on the cable. The story is that I fell back, the celing held me for a second, and then I broke through. One of my feet slipped through the loop and it wrapped tight around my ankle, so the next thing I remember is looking at the stage upside down. I realized what had happened and reached up, grabbing the cable with my hands. A couple of other techies were nearby, and got a ladder next to me that I got on and climbed down. My only injury was a slight scrape to one pinky from the cable.
Moral of the story, don't ever put an actor in charge of lighting crew, he'll leave for food while the techies work and something bad will happen. Put someone responsible in charge, otherwise the new techies will always do the dumbest thing possible.


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## Eboy87

Einarin, that reminded me of a story my very good friend related to me. He was working a show in high school one time. Part way through act I, a lamp burned out on one of the wash lights at FOH positoin. THe problem is, there really wasn't very good access to those lights, and that light was needed badly. So, he climbes up there (with the audience in their seats completely oblivious mind you) to change the builb out. 

To make a long story short, you needed a scissors lift or Genie to get to this position, and while I have no idea how he managed to get up there, he was in a climbing harness (of the lower-body rock climbing variety), clipped to the bar, trying to change out the lamp of a S4, with his legs wrapped around said bar to keep him in place. Well, he lost his grip and took a 3 foot plunge to the end of his safety line, and wound up hanging there until the end of the act, a good two or three numbers.

He's lucky in so many ways; that he clipped himself in, that he had some kind of harness, and, while it's better than none, he's also lucky that he didn't tumble upside down and fall out of his harness. And no one in the audience got hit with anything (which in itself is a miracle).

Of course, he told me this after I asked him to come in and help for a musical review I was running (I was crew chief and didn't have enough people). I made sure he didn't go in the catwalks unsupervised.

So once again, while no one got hurt, the potential for serious injury was there had Lady Luck not been watching over his shoulder.


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## Van

bcfcst4 said:


> Not that this is precisely what this thread is asking... but any advice for an accident prone kid? Last show he banged his head into our sound storage cabinent and got a few stitches on his forehead, this show he fell off a ladder (possible wrist injury, i'm not sure, it happened today). I keep trying to get him to cool it a bit, because I think he gets hurt because he's very... well, I like to call him a NAFOD [No Apparent Fear Of Death (or Danger)]. Any advice?
> 
> -edit- it's official, fractured wrist.


 

Well, one way to deal with an accident prone kid is to wait. Kids, especially middle school through Highschool, are on average much more accident prone as they are growing like weeds. Tripping, head bumping, loss of balance, over extenision of joints, and under estimating strength required are very common. Try to reduce his exposure to those jobs where he's more likely to hurt himself. < Silly I know> If it's just plain recklessness on his part then you have to go the other route and have a serious sit down talk. The hardest thing in the world is trying to convince a teenager thet he's not immortal. < Yes harder than childbirth, and kidney stones, gall stones and a vasectomy all rolled into one.> You will simply have to spell it out that he has a choice, put a lid on it or quit participating with the rest of the class.


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## Charc

Van said:


> Well, one way to deal with an accident prone kid is to wait. Kids, especially middle school through Highschool, are on average much more accident prone as they are growing like weeds. Tripping, head bumping, loss of balance, over extenision of joints, and under estimating strength required are very common. Try to reduce his exposure to those jobs where he's more likely to hurt himself. < Silly I know> If it's just plain recklessness on his part then you have to go the other route and have a serious sit down talk. The hardest thing in the world is trying to convince a teenager thet he's not immortal. < Yes harder than childbirth, and kidney stones, gall stones and a vasectomy all rolled into one.> You will simply have to spell it out that he has a choice, put a lid on it or quit participating with the rest of the class.



Wait, saw blades don't just bounce off me?

Speaking of dangerous situations, the quintessential "attractive/popular/rich/stupid girl" and the grade "jester" both using a bandsaw, at the same time, with no training. I was on my toes.

While I and those around me have for the most part escaped serious injury, there are certain situations that always put me on edge. Working above others is one of my biggest triggers. While I end up doing it quite often (even above the heads of 1,000 people), it never sits well with me. I had a bit of a jolt today while working above actors which reminds me how easy it is to slip up. Luckily what I thought was falling debris turned out to be the whip of an instrument falling off the pipe.


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## PARchild

I had a kid ram a very heavy an very large set piece into my foot, fracturing it. I bruised my ribs something nasty working in the catwalks. My fault, tripped on a cable a fell on one of the bars, i still had to focus and gel all the lekos which required me to lean over said bar. It was a very painful night for me. I also sliced my back open on a vetilation duct in the catwalks and have suffered from several hemp splinters. I've encountered many splinters (even a seven inch one through my foot) and I have to say that hemp is the worst only because its so thin, painful an impossible to get out.


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## punktech

i must posit that metal splinters REALLY suck...

XD


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## gafftapegreenia

I'm with punktech on this one, metal splinters are the worst.


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## Charc

gafftapegreenia said:


> I'm with punktech on this one, metal splinters are the worst.



As aforementioned, they are a pain.

Hey, by the way, apparently I missed a splinter, because I now have one in my thumb. There is no pain or discomfort, but it is completely healed over, is it worth digging out?


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## avkid

charcoaldabs said:


> As aforementioned, they are a pain.
> Hey, by the way, apparently I missed a splinter, because I now have one in my thumb. There is no pain or discomfort, but it is completely healed over, is it worth digging out?


Charlie, don't be stupid.
Cutting skin is for surgeons.


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## Charc

avkid said:


> Charlie, don't be stupid.
> Cutting skin is for surgeons.



Funny you mention that: my mother is an MD.


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## avkid

charcoaldabs said:


> Funny you mention that: my mother is an MD.


If she's not a plastic surgeon I wouldn't suggest it.
I have scars to prove that many GP's can't stitch for anything.


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## superdoo

I really haven't had an major injuries, but my worst was an odd one.

I was gutting an upright piano for a show so naturally decided that all of the strings needed to be cut. After doing so I set to work removing the tunning pegs. I reached in to remove one and a sharp pain went all the way up my arm. It felt like I had taken 220V or something. I looked between my middle and ring fingers and found a small puncture which had a little bit of blood coming out (about the size of a medium gauge piece of piano string). 
Long story short my arm was in agony for around 12 hour and I couldn't close my hand for 2 days.

Just recalling the incident makes my hand and arm hurt!


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## Eboy87

avkid said:


> If she's not a plastic surgeon I wouldn't suggest it.
> I have scars to prove that many GP's can't stitch for anything.



I'm gonna have to call bull$hit on this one. I know plenty of GP's who can do a fine job stitching someone up, and I'm speaking as the son of an MD and as the one that's been on the table a few times (various falls when I was little).


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## LD4Life

Well, I'll share my worst and the worst that happened to someone on a crew of mine. For me, I was acting at the time and caught my foot on a piece of false decking and landed shin-first on the edge of an aluminum riser. Cut my shin to the bone, could see the bone and all. Fun times.
The worst to someone on my crew took place during a production of _Secret Garden_. One of the greener crew members let go of a fly rope that had not been reweighted yet, which promptly began to plummet. My assistant grabbed the rope and eventually stopped it with his hands, or what skin was left on the palms of them. Talk about taking it for the team. It must be noted at this point that the batton in question was an electric loaded with lights (that theatre didn't have an electric fly lift). The guy still has scars all over his hands.


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## avkid

Eboy87 said:


> I'm gonna have to call bull$hit on this one. I know plenty of GP's who can do a fine job stitching someone up


Yes, I admit to poor use of my words.
-
Urgent care is where I have had problems.
In a normal situation with a proper work area and time most doctors can in fact suture well.
Just don't bet the farm on that walk in care center physician with a waiting room of 20 patients and an average per patient time of 6 minutes.
-
If we had the correct supplies I would have had my dad do it.
(26 year EMS vet and US Army trained Medic)


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## Marius

My tale is cautionary on many levels. First and formost it proves that stupidity, in certain circumstances, does indeed hurt. I was 30 years old, working at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre, and had been a techie since I was 16 so I can't claim newbie on this. We never kept the hand guard on the table saw since it was more of a nuisance than anything else. I had been ripping 1x3 for about an hour when a fresh stack of 1 x 12 was brought over. At this point I should have turned off the machine and taken a break to get my bearings back. Instead I just dove in to the next pile. I had the equivalent of white line fever and was off in my own little world and not really paying attention to the blade. I had just finished a cut, and yes I was using push sticks, and was absent-mindedly reaching for the next board when a short, sharp shock jolted my left hand/arm. Long story short I took 1/2" off my left thumb, and the surgeon took another 1/4". I was in the hospital for 1 week, and out of work for 3 months(thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for Workers Comp). When I finally got back to the shop, and had to use the table saw, I was amazed at how scared I was, but I got over it after a fashion. That was my first, and last major injury and it happened 13 years ago. Just remember, kiddies, safety equipment may seem to be a pain in the *****, but sometimes it really does work.


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## Eboy87

Just to reiterate Marius for you young'uns keeping score at home, the moment you lose respect for the equipment, the equipment bites you. 

I'm thankful I've never had a major incident with a power tool. I sanded the knuckle of my thumb a little bit with a dremel; I was sanding something (don't remember what), had the sanding drum on, it snagged and took off to my knuckle. Personally, I'm scared to death of power tools, and I guess it makes me overly cautious around them. That and this strange aversion to pain that I have. My dad on the other hand... let's just say he's had a few incidents these past few months (bathroom remodeling project), and one of them almost cost me my life. Which brings up a few points in and of itself, but I'll leave it to this as well; beer and power tools don't mix.


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## Zman

Well these arent nearly as bad as some that have been reported. I was working on a strike a few months ago for She Loves Me. I was pulling the luan off a wall and there was a freshmen girl working above me. she was very careless and simply took a crowbar to the wood a ripped it off. She moved the entire sheet of luan (off of her wall) and dropped it. It came crashing down a smacked me right in the back. I fell down gave her a piece of my mind and kept working. 
The next one is mostly stupidity rather than anyone else's fault. I was drilling a tiny piece of wood in order to keep a cord hidden. My hand slipped and i squeezed the trigger and the pilot bit went straight trough my nail, i ripped it out and taped it up. It took my nail around a year to grow back.


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## superdoo

Eboy87 said:


> I sanded the knuckle of my thumb a little bit with a dremel; I was sanding something (don't remember what), had the sanding drum on, it snagged and took off to my knuckle.




That reminds me of my other pseudo bad injury... I was making knife rests out of scrap 1x4 with a rotozip. Mind you I was in High School at the time and jsut started working in the theatre, so I didn't bother using a vice to hold the 1" by 4" piece of wood. I mean that would be a waist of time right?
Those of you who have used rotary tools for fine carving can probably guess what happened. Yup. I essentially cheese graded my entire thumb.

This is where the fact that I was in HS at the time really comes into play....
My hand was shaking really bad from the pain and I couldn't finish the project so I went and showed my friend my "cool" battle wound and asked him to finish. I'm a nice guy so I warned him of the danger (but for some reason still didn't think about using the vice). So he grabbed the tool and the tiny piece of wood and started at it. The tool jumped almost immediately but missed him. Being that we were in HS, this caused intense laughter. Then he went back at it and after five minutes I heard the tool jump again followed by a sharp "YOW!"
His thumb and forefinger now looked similar to mine but worse! And yes, there again was much laughter.

Oh how I miss being able to laugh at that kind of pain, however I do NOT miss being that dumb!

I still hate working with rotaries.


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## bobgaggle

I've slit my wrist open twice while working on shows. One happened during Jekyll and Hyde when someone tried to repair a broken ladder upright with screws about an inch too long. I went on stage with a dripping wrist. Luckily I was wearing a trench coat to hide the red stuff. The second time was my fault, again with a screw that i left sticking out of a piece of lumber. Luckily I didn't hit any arteries, but my mom freaked out when she saw the gash. (something about depressed, reclusive teens etc) haha


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## bobgaggle

I FINALLY GOT A CROSS SHAPED SCAR. I was putting some extra screws into a set of stairs, the drill slipped, and i got a nice phillip's head shape right in the middle of my knuckle. I', kinda proud of it. It happened once before but all i got was a hole in my hand...now i've got the cross


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## SteveB

Right now, my worst theater injury, that I can recall in a 34 year career, is a wood splinter under the nail of my middle finger on my right hand, all the way down to the cuticle. This past Sunday on a load-in of a tour of Evita.

Old wood, from an old stage floor due to be replaced this summer.

Required a hospital visit, but only after finishing the bulk of the load in. THEN a visit to the emergencey room. 5 shots of Novacaine, or it's equivelant to numb the hand - those shots really, really hurt, BTW, then a nurse or whatever, digging away at the splinter for 30 minutes using whatever tools, they could find to pry the nail up and dig into the sensitive skin - it is a torture technique for good reason.

A week later, it hurts like a son-of-a-*****, all black and blue and making use of my right hand extraordinarily painful.

Spent today shopping for all sorts of industrial strength finger covers - foam, aluminum, etc... to protect the finger from getting banged. I need the hand early tomorrow for a focus. 

Steve B.


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## gafftapegreenia

My finger hurt reading that.


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## Spikesgirl

Gosh, I've been reading this thread and I think i've got you all beat - due to all the heavy lifting over the tears, the lumbar region of my spine had disingrated. When they give you all those lectures about safe lifting, you should really listen to them. It cost me my stage construction career and the running joke is that I have enough hardware in my back to build a Loadstar.

Aside from that, I had my right thumb crushed during the moving of a light board and nearly had the tip of my left thumb removed during a moment of inattention. Also put a screw through my left thumb - while on top of a 14 foot ladder - and we won't talk about other injuries, it makes me depressed.

Yea, life's been a bowl of cherries in the theater.

Char5lie


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## ReiRei

I dislocated my right shoulder once playing softball and relocated it myself because my coach was dumb and ended up grinding my bones against each other. During BatB we had to pull our 4th electric back (attached ropes to baton and pulled on it while flying it in) and I happened to be one of those people pulling on the ropes. Pull pull pull and suddenly, POP! My right shoulder just popped out of place and luckily someone was standing right next to me saying something about lights or else the set would have been pretty banged up...

Bringing in a hollow metal, cylindrical, pipe thing; and a few trash cans for Little Shop of Horrors set and I didn't really notice at first so I'm not sure which metal object did the trick, but I sliced the palm of my hand open and looked down at my hand at one point and all I said was, "Hey... I should probably get a band-aid."

Running a mic from sound booth to stage, came sprinting down the stairs and my ankle rolled... hard. Looked like someone shoved a couple of baseballs in there and painted them black blue and eventually yellow. Took about a month or so for the swelling to go down. Once my ankles sprain, they stay that way for a really long time...

Adjusting a 36degree s4 in our House right pocket. Leaned over to hear what my LD was saying and I leaned right into it. Now I have a wonderful burn mark on my right arm... smelt the burning flesh and everything... 

Also dropped a pig on my foot while my little pinky toe was broken... that was pleasant...


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## leistico

leistico said:


> Ironically in 22 years of tech I've never had a tech-related injury, though I have banged myself up good when I was acting -- once, in a chase scene, when my foot slipped on the edge of a platform and I buried the corner of that platform into my shin, and once in a fight scene where a punch and a block of that punch were off by a split second. The pinky finger on my right hand...well, it used to be straight  Now it's a reminder to me to rehearse the living s*** out of any physical scene.


Yeah, now it happened. I was building scenery a couple months ago, and I shot a one-inch narrow-crown staple through my finger with a pneumatic. Just one leg of it, in and out the side. I said, "$#!t," walked to the tool room, grabbed pliers, counted to three and yanked. Luckily no pain, not much blood, either. Now I always double-check where my other hand is when I'm banging together two pieces of wood.


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## highschooltech

I have been pretty lucky in my short career, even with all my anti OSHA moments. The worst thing that i have done is slice my finger really good with a gobo i had just cut. I was putting it in the frame and my finger slipped. Almost had to go and get stitchs but our TD is EMT trained and he said it would be a waste of time so we just wrapped it in gauze and i kept working.


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## Spikesgirl

I was feeling a little sorry for myself after reading about such relatively minor injuries. Was I so unsafe that my injuries were due to inattention, but rather I think they were all due to a long tech history instead as it's taken me nearly 35 years to collect them all. See what you have to look forward to?


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## punktech

okay, so second time in a week that i've heard about run away situations handled improperly (LD4Life's post on here). please, please, please people, tell me these are uncommon, i REALLY don't want to go through another. i feel as though there's some sort of lax teaching going on if people don't know what to do about these. 

and i'll say it again, just to get it out there. stab it if you're messing with weight, and if you are holding an out of weight line let it go, scream "runaway" as loudly as you humanly can, and then move like a bat out of hades AWAY FROM THE RAIL!!! if there's an out-of control line NEVER stay near the rail, and NEVER try to stop it, you CAN (and very possibly will) end up dead.


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## Van

leistico said:


> Yeah, now it happened. I was building scenery a couple months ago, and I shot a one-inch narrow-crown staple through my finger with a pneumatic. Just one leg of it, in and out the side. I said, "$#!t," walked to the tool room, grabbed pliers, counted to three and yanked. Luckily no pain, not much blood, either. Now I always double-check where my other hand is when I'm banging together two pieces of wood.


 
This reminds me of my favorite all time carpentry related injuries. I don't think I've posted it on here before, and if I have I apologized.
The following is a true story as related to me by a mentor, of sorts, of mine. So My mentors friend is working on building a house as part of the framing project he is constructing "sistered" 2x4 for the top rail of a wall. Imagine, if you will, you hold two 2x4's together, face to face, you shoot a 16d nail through one side scoot down 8 inches and shot another nail, lather rinse repeat. A very Tedious job. So here's "Heiny" < that's his nickname> with a couple of 12 ' 2x4's layed across his knee, and a framing nailer in his right hand, he's kinda squatting and using his knee as a saw horse of sorts that way he just slide the 2x down a few inches shoots another nail, get it ? quick and easy bu not necessarily the best idea in the world. Well as luck would have it the 2x slipped and Heiny shot a 16d nail right down through the top of his knee. Screaming and cussing, he drives himself to the hospital, since there is no one else at the construction site. Heiny hobbles up to the emergency room check in and the Nurse asks, " What's the matter honey?" He points to his knee where you can just see the head of the nail sticking up about 3/4" above his jeans covered knee. "I've got a nail, in my knee." he grimaces. he nurse with a concerned look on her face gets up and walks around the desk. She gets a close look at his knee, looks him in the face, looks back down at the knee, straightens up and says,"Well honey, Why didn't you stop hammering ? "


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## noiseboyalltheway

Was working on a show in a glasgow college few months back, I had t push the retrackt back to get at the back bank of fresnels, caught my finger in the rolling release mech, nearly broke it in half.
this is a hint to anyone using retractable seating... dont do it yourself


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## noiseboyalltheway

ducktape and tri-lite??? always works with my lot


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## photoatdv

We almost had a runaway during a concert a few days ago. We were trying to lower main and it fouled on valence. Myself and a teacher were trying to get it loose and more of the main was caught of something else came loose and the weight fell onto valence, which I was holding. Suddenly main is really arbor heavy and valence is really pipe heavy. I reached to grab main to help him and somehow the rope went slack for a couple of seconds. About this time the weight hit valence and I let go of main to grab valence with both hands (I had only been holding it with one). Fortunatly we had two boys standing there who grabbed the ropes and helped us hold them until we got them back apart.
By the way-- There was NOT an option to let go and run as ther were performers onstage under the valence.
Between all the techs and teachers no one can remember lines fouling in our theatre. Does anyone know why they would suddenly foul like that? 

The injury part of that I hurt my shoulder again. I seem to hurt my shoulder flying something about once a year.

Other good theatre injuries:
The top plate on the arbor falling 2' and hitting my hand (finished pulling remaining 11 weights then gaff taped). Still have a scar.
Cutting my knuckle to the bone with a drill trying to drill a hole in the back of a strobe light to put a safety through. (Masking tape, then liquid bandage and makeup so it wouldn't be so noticable)
Shattering a fake candle light bulb in my hand during a show (fortunatly I actually didn;t cut myself too badly)


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## derekleffew

photoatdv said:


> ...The top plate on the arbor falling 2' and hitting my hand ...


This is the second mention of a spreader plate causing injury. ALWAYS tie it to the top of the arbor or tie a clove hitch around the tie rod(s), while loading/unloading. Tieline is cheap and usually plentiful. NEVER forget to remove your ties before the arbor moves.


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## gafftaper

Got myself a couple of small but painful injuries lately

Yesterday I was squeezing some heavy wire with linesman's pliers, my grip slipped and I managed to bite myself and get a NASTY blood blister on my hand

Today. I was working with some nylon rope and got out the mini-torch to melt the ends so they wouldn't fall apart. I dripped several drops of liquid nylon on my hand which:
a) burned enough to give me blisters
b) fused themselves to my skin


----------



## Conner8809

i think i have you all beat. i was working on a 50-60 foot ladder fell landed on my feet forgot to crouch to absorb the impact. pinched nerve in the hip, AND i sprained my lumbar region in my back... VICODAIN!


----------



## Spikesgirl

Conner8809 said:


> i think i have you all beat. i was working on a 50-60 foot ladder fell landed on my feet forgot to crouch to absorb the impact. pinched nerve in the hip, AND i sprained my lumbar region in my back... VICODAIN!



I'll trade your sprain for my permanent disabled back! I ended up with two discs replaced and enough hardware holding stuff together to rig a show. 

Take my advice, be very very careful with your back. I've worked with a ton of techs and all of them seem to end up with bad backs. i used to gloat - not anymore...


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## Conner8809

yeah, i end up with crippling pain. thank goodness i live in florida. the cold screws me up pretty badly...


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## derekleffew

BillESC said:


> The worst injury was not my own.
> 
> In 1972 I was working Props for the load in of "On the Town" at the Imperial Theatre in NYC. We were making cotton candy cones stage right when I heard a scream and looked up in the direction it came from. I saw a man falling from the grid. He bounced off a flown set piece about 40' off of the deck and tumbled to the floor.
> 
> EMT's were called and he was taken to the hospital. He did not survive.


I think this thread should have ended with the above somber post. There is no worse injury worse than the loss of one's life. As one of our members keeps proclaiming, "The show is not worth dying for." Think safety first, ALWAYS.


----------



## gafftapegreenia




----------



## TimMiller

Once again i get really mad when i have to run, because it means someone has done something stupid. I also like to put a wrap or two on the line while loading or unloading. The brakes on the lines are only rated for 50 lbs!!!! ALWAYS REMEMBER THIS!!!!! Its the job of the weights to keep everything couterbalanced and from moving, not the job of the brake. The brake is designed to keep the line from accidently traveling up or down slightly. Also keep in mind 50lbs is not a lot of weight at all.


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## nickgts1

not exactly a theatre injury but i blame it on it because i would not have been injured without theatre

high school (should explain the following) we were chasing a girl around (i told you) and trying to tickle her when she ran out some double doors and off of a 8' wide by 3' high cement platform into our loading dock area. the two guys in front of me both tried to run through the door at the same time and got stuck when they started to back out is when i came up and dove between them (being the skinny little twerp that i was and am actually i graduated high school at 115lbs and now i way a whooping 135 8 years later) i made it my huge steel toed boots however did not and my diving progression was suddenly halted. i popped loose and tucked into a roll thinking i would be fine until i rolled off the cement platform and landed on my minimag light on my belt (which i was wearing because of theatre) and it punctured my side. that’s right blunt end in i had to pop it out again and being the manly idiot i was didn't go to the hospital. i am lucky I’m not dead from infection but it didn't even scar! so call me a liar if you want but i will find witnesses!
--nick--


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## photoatdv

I should have gone to the hospital when I cut my knuckle on the drill I mentioned earlier. Had to glue it back together with liquid bandage then cover with makeup so nobody realized how bad it was.


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## avkid

TimMiller said:


> Once again i get really mad when i have to run, because it means someone has done something stupid. I also like to put a wrap or two on the line while loading or unloading. The brakes on the lines are only rated for 50 lbs!!!!


It's not a brake, it's a lock.


----------



## Van

derekleffew said:


> This is the second mention of a spreader plate causing injury. ALWAYS tie it to the top of the arbor or tie a clove hitch around the tie rod(s), while loading/unloading. Tieline is cheap and usually plentiful. NEVER forget to remove your ties before the arbor moves.


 
When Working the rail, back in the day, I always used a trick I learned while Gripping for the movies. Check any movie set and you'll see the Grips all walking around with their work gloves attached to their back pocket or belt with a small spring loaded clamp. These "Grip Clips" are cheap and readily available from everywhere like Home depot or Harbor Freight. If you keep your gloves hooked to your belt with a grip clip while working the rail it's a simple matter to simply clip the spreader plate up out of the way with your glove clip. Save fingers and swearing. Plus it just looks cool to clip your work gloves to your back pocket. People will think you've got a movie background and you'll alway have a grip clip on hand.


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## derekleffew

I once asked a TD for a Grip Clip and he said, "Oh, you mean a <mammary gland> -pincher?" Some call them "Opera Clips" as they're great for temporarily holding a drape out of the way, as for an end of act "page bow".



As a hot-shot freshman, I impressed the TD by bringing in the ancestor of this (all metal, and one side said "push":

We bought several and they lived in the loading gallery. If I were doing this today, I would add a lanyard of some sort. (Now that I think about it, if I need to add a tieline as a safety, why not just use the tieline?)

I'm not sure I approve of the practice of taking a spring clip, or any tool/object without a lanyard, to height, Van.


Again, if using any device on an arbor to keep the spreader plate(s) out of the way, REMOVE IT BEFORE THE ARBOR MOVES! Also, tighten the thumbscrews on the retaining collars, EVERY TIME.


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## airkarol

Genie lifts.. they're always more fun when stuck in the "up" position.


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## photoatdv

No injuries forunatly, but I've seen the two pros that I've worked with do some really dangerous stuff with lifts. One has climbed up onto the top rair because the life wasn't tall enough. (I accidentally turned on a light he was working on which didn't help, but in my defense he DID tell me to run through cues... Didn't think about parking those off). Then another time both of them went up on the one person genie-- one sat on the railing and one stood on the outside railing of the basket, the held onto rhe rail with his legs while taking down a heavy fixture. He scared the crap out of me (and his family who had come to the show and were watching strike.)


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## maggyx13

two worst:
1) this one isn't bad just weird to think about. i was rigging and there was a plastic clasp on the rope (i dont' know why) and i grabbed it and it went deep into my palm. it hurt to pull it out
2) i was holding a reporicating saw and i accidently pushed it and cut my leg. it wasnt too bad. 
just thought of this: another weird thing that happend to me is i stapled my heel with a staple gun.


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## jneveaux

1. splinter from 4x8 platform frame shattering as it fell to the stage floor during strike (as a student tech pulled out an 8' leg brace). splinter was 3" long and stuck straight through my L middle finger hanging out an inch on each side. i would have looked like i had a piercing if it had been metal. gave the kid the "finger" with emphasis and headed for the er.
2. making a blind cut on a piece of 3/4 ply on a delta table saw and it kicked back into my solar plexus: took my wind out and i blacked out for a few seconds. had it checked out at the er later and the doc said it just missed my spleen. lucky.
3. closest call. student tech (nothing against students by the way, just an occupational hazard sometimes) was trying to change roundels in a strip light up in the flys. dropped the color frame and it landed on the stage floor within a foot of my foot and the sharp metal corner stuck like a knife in the soft stage floor pine, vibrating like an arrow shot into a tree.


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## jneveaux

i may be a newbie to this forum, but i'm too old to be a junior techie!


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## gafftapegreenia

Don't worry, once you become addicted to the Booth like some of us and post constantly you'll move up.


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## Eboy87

I just remembered this one. We were loading out PA and lighting for an upscale art show. Not all of the art pieces were out as we were loading cases, and some idiot decided to shove a half full cable trunk in our general direction. Unfortunately, he didn't realize the floor was slanted, and the trunk (moving at a decent clip) was headed straight for one of the art pieces. So, being the stupid new guy, I grab it and stop it. Unfortunately, I grabbed it where the latch and tongue-and-groove aluminum met and did a nice job tearing up my palm. Still have a scar from that one. Quick gaff tape and Kleenex field dressing and I was back coiling cable. Good thing I'm up to date on my tetanus shots. 

I now wear gloves on the ins and outs.


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## Edrick

I don't think I've ever been injured in the theater, then again our theater wasn't very highly involved in what we had to do. I probably cut my finger on something once.


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## LDTom

The worst injury that I had was when I was trying to jump up on the stage which is about 2 feet off the ground, I would jump up from the floor constantly through out the day. 

Well this time was different I jumped up and my legs came up from underneath me and I came down on the edge of the stage. Though I had truly broken something with the amount of pain that I was in. 

It gets better I was doing lights for the opening act for the show and I reached down and felt my leg and to my horror I have a giant lump of my leg. I almost passed after feeling it because up to that time I was feeling OK after the initial pain.

From that moment onwards, I was ordered to sit on a coach and put ice on it for the rest of the night untill I was sent home Miraculously I did not break anything and in a few days time the lump was down to almost nothing.

That is thankfully the worst that I have hurt myself to this point. I have been in situations were I could have been hurt much more. I almost fell off the 2nd to top step of a ladder when I started to tip over and I can guarantee if I had actually fallen that day instead of a near by tech stabilizing the ladder as I clung to the truss that I was working on.


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## lieperjp

My worst theatre injury wasn't too bad on the pain department, but it was kind of embarrassing. We have an enclosed catwalk with a ceiling only about 5'6" high with a smoke detector in the middle that drops about four inches. I'm 6'2." I was walking (ok, walking very quickly) and BAM! All of a sudden I was lying on my back in the catwalk with a nice pain in my forehead. The people on the stage all looked around for the cause of the big bang and I don't know if anyone knew it was me. Needless to say, now I am much more careful where I walk in the catwalk... And I made a little florescent orange paper sign to hang near the smoke detector to remind me (and others) to DUCK!!!


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## Wolf

LD4Life said:


> Well, I'll share my worst and the worst that happened to someone on a crew of mine. For me, I was acting at the time and caught my foot on a piece of false decking and landed shin-first on the edge of an aluminum riser. Cut my shin to the bone, could see the bone and all. Fun times.
> The worst to someone on my crew took place during a production of _Secret Garden_. One of the greener crew members let go of a fly rope that had not been reweighted yet, which promptly began to plummet. My assistant grabbed the rope and eventually stopped it with his hands, or what skin was left on the palms of them. Talk about taking it for the team. It must be noted at this point that the batton in question was an electric loaded with lights (that theatre didn't have an electric fly lift). The guy still has scars all over his hands.



Well far as im concerned when something like that happens you let the drop hit the ground. Like in this case sounds like the guy heart his hands but not bad enough to be out of commission. This has happend to one of my parents tech buds in college. Their was a batten that had been used and flown out (only god knows how) because it was not weighted for the equipment that that been placed on it, they also did not mark the rail that it had been used. So this other guys comes in after the people that had used it were gone. He goes and takes the lock off and it starts to plunge. He grabbed the rope and it took all the skin off his hands. They said all they heard was a blood curtling scream from the wings. He had to be taken to the hospital and he didnt work the rest of the year.


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## Grimtheatre

Thankfully this one has been my worst. After working a couple late nights and running on little sleep was working on one of our cats you could only get to by extension ladder. while taking the ladder down my hand slipped and the full force of the extension came down hard on my foot (gravity works my friends). Everyone at the hospital swore it was broken but thankfully i had just bruised the hell out of it. Here it is a few weeks later and it isnt a gross color anymore but still a little tender. woo gravity!


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## xander562

Thankfully nothing more than a few bruises, scratches, and burns. I've been lucky.


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## Marius

Eboy87 said:


> I just remembered this one. We were loading out PA and lighting for an upscale art show. Not all of the art pieces were out as we were loading cases, and some idiot decided to shove a half full cable trunk in our general direction. Unfortunately, he didn't realize the floor was slanted, and the trunk (moving at a decent clip) was headed straight for one of the art pieces. So, being the stupid new guy, I grab it and stop it. Unfortunately, I grabbed it where the latch and tongue-and-groove aluminum met and did a nice job tearing up my palm. Still have a scar from that one. Quick gaff tape and Kleenex field dressing and I was back coiling cable. Good thing I'm up to date on my tetanus shots.
> 
> I now wear gloves on the ins and outs.



But did you save the piece, or was your sacrifice in vain?


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## CynicWhisper

Grimtheatre said:


> Thankfully this one has been my worst. After working a couple late nights and running on little sleep was working on one of our cats you could only get to by extension ladder. while taking the ladder down my hand slipped and the full force of the extension came down hard on my foot (gravity works my friends). Everyone at the hospital swore it was broken but thankfully i had just bruised the hell out of it. Here it is a few weeks later and it isnt a gross color anymore but still a little tender. woo gravity!



You lucky turd. My friend dropped a table on my foot. Just a stupid, fold up table. All the doctors swore it was just bruised and sent me home. Yeah, I decided it definitely wasn't just bruised somewhere around the 15th hour of a 17 hour new year's show load-out. But I continued loading out since the stupid doctor said it was just bruised. Yeah, I regretted that decision. After surgery and two months on crutches, I became the titanium plated techie with viking arms. But still, watch out for those tables.


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## tech2000

I've just had a bunch of cuts and stuff like that, like october of 2007 when me and our light design girl (high school theater) were putting up a door and she used screws that were twice as long as they should have been. She put the screw in and it went through the door and into my index finger and almost through the other side of it. Feels really weird to have a screw moving around inside your finger...

Anyways, a year earlier, our sound tech (didn't think it through obviously) was trying to pry apart some 2x6's that were nailed together and so he put them on a couple of sawhorses, got a prybar in there and started pounding it with a hammer.
So his legs are, you know, apart and he's swinging the hammer downwards onto the prybar when he misses, full force, and hits himself right between the legs. He was definately down for a while and even though he just graduated, I still remind him and get a good chuckle out of it.
Fun times...


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## Hughesie

tech2000 said:


> full force, and hits himself right between the legs.



must have been funny to hear a noise boy say something other than "check 1,2,3"


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## Goph704

Non Hodgkins lymphoma in my right knee.


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## tech2000

Hughesie89 said:


> must have been funny to hear a noise boy say something other than "check 1,2,3"



He had to take a break for a little while afterwards...


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## dramatech

A little over two years ago, while focusing lights, I had a ladder lose it's footing and fall from under me. I fell 18 feet. Broke my ankle, wrist, and disintegrated my elbow, jammed my rotator cuff and broke three ribs. I currently have problems with all of those regions of my body, some worse than others. I am currently under medication to remove an infection in the bone of my arm, that followed one of the steel screws that holds the plate in my arm, to repair the fractured elbow. "Other than that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play"?


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## Van

Hey I whacked my shin with a machete this weekend! Oh wait that wasn't theatre related, but it's really fun. Now I'm gonna have this cool Prussian dueling scar, er except on my shin.......For some reason it grosses out my wife, after all these years of bizarre injuries I've finally found something that really makes her go EWWWW!


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## Ross

I have a terrible habit of reorienting gobos bare-handed. And pinched my finger pretty good in a nico press once.


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## photoatdv

Ross said:


> I have a terrible habit of reorienting gobos bare-handed. And pinched my finger pretty good in a nico press once.


I've found that doing anything barehanded with lit or recently-lit lights can have bad consequences...


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## cdub260

lieperjp said:


> My worst theatre injury wasn't too bad on the pain department, but it was kind of embarrassing. We have an enclosed catwalk with a ceiling only about 5'6" high with a smoke detector in the middle that drops about four inches. I'm 6'2." I was walking (ok, walking very quickly) and BAM! All of a sudden I was lying on my back in the catwalk with a nice pain in my forehead. The people on the stage all looked around for the cause of the big bang and I don't know if anyone knew it was me. Needless to say, now I am much more careful where I walk in the catwalk... And I made a little florescent orange paper sign to hang near the smoke detector to remind me (and others) to DUCK!!!



I did that exact same thing when I was working for the Theatre Department of Santa Ana College about 10 years ago, except I walked into a beam rather than a smoke detector. Also, at 5' 8" I'm a bit shorter. Fortunately, aside from a bruise on my forehead I was not injured. I just wish someone had been filming it as I imagine it was a great Wile E. Coyote moment.


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## cdub260

After 19 years working as a tech, I've collected a few injuries.

I dropped an arbor weight on my toes 16 years ago. I now wear steel toed boots.

I put a staple through the first joint of my middle finger 12 years ago.

I ripped a good size chunk out of my left palm while moving a flat. A staple sticking out the back bit me.

I ran that same palm along a jagged shard of metal on a lighting truss, leaving a lovely 2 inch scar. I now wear weightlifting gloves when I climb. In addition to protecting my palms from vicious chunks of metal, they also improve my grip.

But my all time worst accident was in September of 2000 while striking the lights from the Pageant of the Masters. I made a series of mistakes that resulted in my falling of a lighting truss. The first was that I was not using the proper safety equipment, no climbing harness, no fall arrester. Second, I was carrying my lights down rather than lowering them with a rope. Third, and perhaps most important, I was in a hurry. I had been doing tech for 10 years at this point and gave no thought to how blatantly unsafe some of my work methods were at the time. In hindsite, I had been incredibly lucky not to have had a serious accident earlier in my career.

I only had one light left, and while carrying that light down, I slipped. I fell somewhere between 10 and 15 ft. down onto some nice, "soft" *concrete steps. The way the fall began I should have hit the ground head first, but through an incredible stroke of luck, I somehow managed to straighten myself out and land feet first.

Fortunately, I didn't break anything except the 10 degree Source 4 I had in my hand, but I did manage to injure both of my knees and pinch a nerve in my back. The cartilage in my right knee is just so much hamburger, and the left is not much better. Now, 8 years later, my knees still bother me. They'll never be as good as they were before the accident. As for the pinched nerve, I was in constant pain for 4 years until I somehow un-pinched it.

I took three important lessons from this accident.

1. Always use the proper safety equipment.
2. While its sometimes necessary to work quickly, never, ever be in a hurry. The time you save isn't worth your life.
3. Luck will only take you so far, then it will get you or someone else killed or seriously injured.*


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## derekleffew

charcoaldabs said:


> ... and decided to walk straight into a big a** sprinkler distro pipe in the basement. The impact left a bit of a mark, and ...


 You dented a sprinkler feeder pipe? You must have a schedule 160 head!


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## Serendipity

derekleffew said:


> You dented a sprinkler feeder pipe? You must have a schedule 160 head!




Glad I'm not the only one who thought that!


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## Nikgwolf

Certainly not the worst injury, but the other day I had managed to cut myself with my serrated Leatherman blade in the thumb...band-aids were readily avaliable but their glue did not hold after being exposed to water. At most, with the steady amount of hands on work I do, the bandage lasted a half-day. However, other readily avaliable materials were gaff, electrical, and masking tape. The masking tape is abundant and wrapped four or five times around the cut will easily last all day. Yet, the electrical tape's elasticity bandaged the wound with a much nicer seal. I've yet to use gaff tape, but I imagine, a gaff tape 1st layer with an electrical tape 2nd layer would make a nice bandage.

Stay safe!

Nik
Flickr: nikgwolf512's Photostream


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## malex

While working on the old Ice Show at Busch Gardens, I sprained an ankle on the ice during a scene change. It wasn't the worst injury in the world, but I had to finish the high speed scene change by pushing set pieces hopping on the ice on one foot, then hopping to the fly rail and moving 3 linesets. I promptly fell over in the wings and was replaced by the followspot guy.


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## photoatdv

The gaff actually has worked quite well for me. I've done the stupid moment with the drill and had a plate hit my hand when we were pulling weights. One of the guys on my crew broke his finger and used gaff so he could finish the show.


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## Spikesgirl

Yesterday, I had my orthopedic surgeon tell me that my active days backstage are drawing to a close and that he wants to work one show a season - period, that includes design and SMing. Of course, I can still work in the front office, since that's just computer work...not a happy camper today.


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## photoatdv

Why can't you design? That isn't too physical. SM shouldn't be, but as we know when something goes wrong the SM often ends up fixing it.


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## cdub260

Spikesgirl said:


> Yesterday, I had my orthopedic surgeon tell me that my active days backstage are drawing to a close and that he wants to work one show a season - period, that includes design and SMing. Of course, I can still work in the front office, since that's just computer work...not a happy camper today.



We had something like this happen with one of our shop staff 2 years ago. A bone spur pressing against his spinal cord forced him to retire on disability at 57 years old.


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## RichMoore

I was working with IATSE local 76 in San Antonio in the late 80s doing a Tina Turner show. She was onstage doing her last number, "Proud Mary" and I was on the mezzanine level of the venue, standing on a 2' riser with some other hands, watching the end of the show. Just as she finished the number and the crowd was going wild, I turned to step off of the riser to make my way down a really long set of concrete stairs to get backstage. Just as I stepped off of the riser, there was a blackout. I stepped into space....missed the floor and landed in the stairwell and proceeded to go end over end for what seemed like 5 minutes until I hit the doors at the bottom of the stairwell. As I lay at the bottom of the stairwell trying to assess the damage that I had done to my body a fellow stagehand who saw me tumbling came rushing down the stairs to see if I was ok. Not seeing any blood or bones sticking out, he said I would be ok and he was going back up to see her do her encore. Well, the injury was one of the worst that I have ever suffered. My right patella, kneecap, was all but shattered. It took almost 6 months before I could really get around again.


----------



## Drewdesign

One time I went flying in the air on the fly system gave me really bad rope burns and when I fell I broke my leg.


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## cdub260

Drewdesign said:


> One time I went flying in the air on the fly system gave me really bad rope burns and when I fell I broke my leg.



There's a thread on this very subject entitled "Runaway lineset". I think it might be worth a look.


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## Spikesgirl

photoatdv said:


> Why can't you design? That isn't too physical. SM shouldn't be, but as we know when something goes wrong the SM often ends up fixing it.




I'm a hands on kinda girl - all right, stop it right there, you guys! In a 'real' theater, it would be a different matter, but I work in a community theater and the SM wears many hats, including setting the stage and props. It's rough when you can't get down on your hands and knees to place spike marks or tape out a set (which I physically couldn't do before I saw the doctor). 

Designing (for me) means spending lots of time bent over a drafting table as I draft by hand. Then there are the elevations, thumbnails, etc and then moving on to the models. There are trips to the store with the shop foreman to get the right trim, fabrics and our designer is also required to dress the set - hard when you can't move furniture (my weight limit is currently set at 10 pounds) or twist and turn to get through second hand stores and the like. My surgeon want me to not to anything for the next six months to see if it has any impact on the progression of my injury. Since I am under his care, he can call the shots as he sees fit. I don't play along, I lose my disability.

cdub260 - I lost my position as shop foreperson at 47 and have been volunteering at community theater since. It's okay, but I sure miss the money I was making and the equipment I had to work with. Disability is okay, but only pays 66% of your last established salary.

I've decided that it's okay though, at least it's getting me out of designing a show I didn't want to design and SMing a show I'm preferred not to have SM'ed. There's always FoH...


----------



## len

Somehow I tore a meniscus (knee ligament) in December, 07. Fortunately, I was not scheduled for anything until March, so the surgery and rehab fit in.


----------



## Sony

Personally, the worst I've ever done to myself is slice my hand open. One of the people I was working with though decided she would try and use the table saw all by herself even after I offered to help her...she ended up almost cutting one of her fingers off and needing stiches. I ended up having to do damage control and drive her to the medical center. She hasn't used power tools since...


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## Serendipity

Spikesgirl said:


> My surgeon want me to not to anything for the next six months to see if it has any impact on the progression of my injury. Since I am under his care, he can call the shots as he sees fit. I don't play along, I lose my disability.



I'm sorry...


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## codered11343

I had a gash in my head from when a actor dropped a female stage-pin from a 20' cable on my from about 15'. Had to get 4 stitches in my forehead.
But I did get a funny quote from it all. After this happened, I was in my schools infirmary for a hour getting patched up, and when I get back my LD was saying that the actor kept apologizing and saying that he was so sorry over and over again. After about 45 minuets of him apologizing to him, he told the actor, "We get it, your sorry this happened, but it doesn't change the fact that you still hit Ray in the head with a stage pin!!!"

That still makes me laugh when I think about it.


----------



## Serendipity

codered11343 said:


> I had a gash in my head from when a actor dropped a female stage-pin from a 20' cable on my from about 15'. Had to get 4 stitches in my forehead.
> But I did get a funny quote from it all. After this happened, I was in my schools infirmary for a hour getting patched up, and when I get back my LD was saying that the actor kept apologizing and saying that he was so sorry over and over again. After about 45 minuets of him apologizing to him, he told the actor, "We get it, your sorry this happened, but it doesn't change the fact that you still hit Ray in the head with a stage pin!!!"
> 
> That still makes me laugh when I think about it.


That is pretty amusing.
One guy who graduated last year had the habit of dropping things from large distances, with impeccable accidental aim. He hit my lighting teacher with a gobo, and almost with a color frame, but she dodged. He also tossed a 10' stage pin cable off of a genie lift, and it landed in a coil around a girl who was taking a break from unscrewing seats (we have to strike he first two-three rows to get to some of our lighting positions) as well as a couple other instances with rolls of color and the like.
If you're working Audio in Cincinnati, watch out for him.  
(Yes, we told him not to throw things. No, it didn't help.)


----------



## Serendipity

Charc said:


> I landed with both feet on the ground, and suffered three extremely minor scrapes, 1/8" and 1/4" in lengths, respectively.


Now draft them in scale!

Sorry about your ego, and your pain, but at least it makes a good story. (Plus you landed on your feet, like a cat, or an electrician.)


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## cghaffoor

I got a flat drop on my left hand (the same hand I used to write with) and brused it badly, and pulled my left shoulder during a hang and focus week (couldnt move it for 3 days)


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## Adorian

So the worst injury I have had was when I was actually in a show that was using swords. During one of the practices I turned around and the guy "somehow" missed the other huys sword and slashed me across the back. It was dulled, but still hurt for awhile.

My worst tech accident had to be when I was setting a piece of scenery into it's fitting slot (so that it could be easily taken in and out during performances) my foot somehow got caught underneath and was locked in place in the slot under the set piece. My toes were black and blue there for awhile!


----------



## cdub260

Adorian said:


> My worst tech accident had to be when I was setting a piece of scenery into it's fitting slot (so that it could be easily taken in and out during performances) my foot somehow got caught underneath and was locked in place in the slot under the set piece. My toes were black and blue there for awhile!



Steel toed boots are wonderful things.

My most recent injury is one I can't pin down to a single incident. All the years of wiring sets, hanging lights, and otherwise doing assembly and maintenance work has resulted in tendonitis in my right wrist. It's moderately painful, but more of a nuisance than anything else. As long as it remains at nuisance level and doesn't get any worse, I'm supposed to wear a wrist brace when I work. According to my doctor, even when my wrist is done healing, I need to wear the brace when I'm doing any kind of assembly work to prevent a reoccurrence of the tendonitis.


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## Adorian

Problem I had with steel toe is that it was during the show and we had to be dressed up in character costumes. (insert shudder here)


----------



## NABster07

My worst would be in our last production of Beauty and the Beast, where i was "discovered" at a production meeting and cast as gaston. While rehearsing the battle/death scene, i fell off the "safety" platform from about 10 feet, landed flat on my feet, tearing my ACL and patellar tendon. Had surgery 3 weeks ago and am still in the wheelchair. 
Worst tech wise was I lost an entire fingernail in a followspot drop.


----------



## Van

NABster07 said:


> My worst would be in our last production of Beauty and the Beast, where i was "discovered" at a production meeting and cast as gaston. While rehearsing the battle/death scene, i fell off the "safety" platform from about 10 feet, landed flat on my feet, tearing my ACL and patellar tendon. Had surgery 3 weeks ago and am still in the wheelchair.
> Worst tech wise was I lost an entire fingernail in a followspot drop.


 
See ! this proves it! Acting is much worse for you than Tech!


----------



## Wolf

Today while working with a power distro I got shocked with 120v at 100amps. And im still here to talk about it. 

(Yes i know some have had worse but this was the worst for me so far)


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## sk8rsdad

Actually you got shocked at 120V with a few milliamps of current since the resistance of dry skin is around 400,000 ohms, wet around 15,000 ohm. 

Still it's the current that kills and anything over 6 milliamps can be quite painful. Anything above 100 milliamps can induce defibrilation. Really high currents lead to charring.


----------



## rochem

NABster07 said:


> My worst would be in our last production of Beauty and the Beast, where i was "discovered" at a production meeting and cast as gaston. While rehearsing the battle/death scene, i fell off the "safety" platform from about 10 feet, landed flat on my feet, tearing my ACL and patellar tendon. Had surgery 3 weeks ago and am still in the wheelchair.
> Worst tech wise was I lost an entire fingernail in a followspot drop.



Wow, I actually did something similar last year in our Beauty and the Beast. I was playing Gaston, and for the death I was supposed to fall off the 14 foot platform backwards onto a mat. Before this scene, I always check that they're there before I go on, as well as seeing them while doing the scene about a minute before I fall. Well, about a week and a half before opening, I went to fall and there was no mat. I slammed my head onto the metal cover of a floor pocket, then it bounced into the big metal loading door that was open. Blacked out for some time, went to the hospital with a severe concussion, and couldn't drive or concentrate fully for a few weeks. Had a really hard time remembering lines too. 

As it turns out, some of the techs (it's high school, remember) had decided to lay down on it to pass the time and had moved it a couple feet from where it was. Then the tech who was in charge of making sure it was in place didn't notice anything different when she returned, so she just assumed it was still where she had set it a few minutes ago. 

I think I also sustained some very serious brain damage, since shortly after that fall I made the decision to move to tech full-time.


----------



## Chris15

sk8rsdad said:


> Actually you got shocked at 120V with a few milliamps of current since the resistance of dry skin is around 400,000 ohms, wet around 15,000 ohm.
> 
> Still it's the current that kills and anything over 6 milliamps can be quite painful. Anything above 100 milliamps can induce defibrilation. Really high currents lead to charring.



Note that skin resistance can vary widely between individuals. From memory, under most conditions - ie intact skin etc, any voltage that ranks as ELV, ie. under 32V AC rms @ 50Hz or under 115V DC, is unlikely to result in shock. Does that however mean you can be complacent? It would be your funeral not mine...

10mA is normally considered the threshold of problems, yes you can feel it before then but at about 10mA you loose muscular control - the inability to let go.

Note that a couple of milliamps across the heart is all that is needed to make you a statistic... please don't so as some bright spark did and try and measure your internal resistance. He got a [url =http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-50.html]Darwin Award[/url] for his efforts. For those who don't know, those awards honour those who improve the gene pool by removing themselves from it... 

Note that currents in excess of 100mA induce ventricular fibrillation not defibrillation which is what is used to correct your heart rhythm...

I have a good friend who can tell you what 415v feels like... Fortunately there was a rubber mat between his feet and the ground and hence he can still tell the story...


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## jwl868

rochem said:


> .....I was supposed to fall off the 14 foot platform.....



Are there no adults involved in your program? [That's rhetorical.]

Falls are the second leading cause of workplace deaths. There had to be an alternative to a 14-foot drop.


Joe


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## Van

jwl868 said:


> Are there no adults involved in your program? [That's rhetorical.]
> 
> Falls are the second leading cause of workplace deaths. There had to be an alternative to a 14-foot drop.
> 
> 
> Joe


 
I'm glad you said that. 
A 14 foot fall should have required the use of a Stunt Coordinator, and hopefully a licensed one. Any fall from a distance of more than 6 ft is something like 80% fatal. A 14 ft drop , should be a fall into a Pnuematic device < pillow> or at the least Proffesional grade stunt mats.


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## anonymous381

besides the various slivers and shocks I just recently wound up in the ER since there wasn't a walk-in open at 10:30 the day before opening night. I had an insulation sliver (?) right in the dead center of my eye..according to one of the adult construction workers. The ER guys didn't know what it was


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## garyvp

A 2.5" pneumatic nail shot through the web between my thumb and index finger and missed everything - the classic flesh wound. Tetanus shot. Also buried a phillips bit into my index finger; the nail is still deformed.

Also a popped t3-4 disk 20 years ago pushing 500 lbs of ancient dimmers on a dolly and then the hernia from my Frankenstein set. 

Everyone of the guys here who builds sets have back issues and all have had hernia operations. I am the youngest at 61. Occasionally we get some kids to show up, but they are not tool competent. Ahh...community theater!

But we love it.

Gary


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## gafftapegreenia

Concerning falls.

What I have often done to avoid a drastic fall for an actor is to built a platform a few feet lower than the hight from which the person is falling. Upon this platform there will be jump pad as well as secure, cushioned safety rails. Actor "falls" only a few feet at most, then safely exits. 

A 14 foot drop will kill people. I think you got really lucky. Did they call EMS? I'm surprised you didn't break anything.


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## rochem

gafftapegreenia said:


> A 14 foot drop will kill people. I think you got really lucky. Did they call EMS? I'm surprised you didn't break anything.



I should have clarified. The mat was still there and the majority of my body did land on it, but my head landed right off the edge of the mat. So my whole body landed fine, but my head from about shoulders down kept going down to the floor. EMTs were not called, although the Assistant Director (who is somehow medically certified, no idea what though) did take a look at me. I realize how lucky I got to not get anything worse that a concussion, and I've become really anal about safety at heights since then, particularly with our very old rigging system being used for unintended purposes. As sad as it is, I find that the local road house (where highly-trained, skilled, and experience technicians are working hundreds of hours a year for large salaries) is much more concerned about safety then most high school theatres (where people with little to no training and maybe an hour or two backstage operate very old equipment which obviously wasn't designed for safety). Kinda sad really.


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## gafftapegreenia

Glad you took the incident so seriously, and that you weren't that badly hurt. Is your back/neck ok? Sometimes these things can come back to haunt you. 

High school theatre is/can be a very scary place. Looking back just a few years removed I am terrified by some of the stuff we did - and we were one of the better ones!


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## Gretsch

I just had a genie lift tipped on top of me today....not permanent damage but I will deffinately be stiff in the morning (and before your mind goes there, no not THAT kind of stiff.) Other than that I have only gotten the occasional rope burn, blister, or splinter.


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## genericcomment

Worst theatre injury happened 12 days ago. We were flying some delicate set pieces and we were in the process of balancing the arbor and the pipe. Well the set pieces were only made of some 1/2" and scrim so my TD had the guy on the load rail put on 2 bricks to start. Even though he knew it wouldn't be enough he told me to test weight anyway. Well they went up easy for awhile then it became impossible. So then I had to bring them back in. It was obvious now that it was pipe heavy and I started losing control as I brought them in. I yelled up to the guy at the load rail to put some resistance on the line to slow it down, but him having a lack of sense when it comes to flys(Wishing I knew this at that time) grabbed the wrong line and pulled down meaning the pipe with the delicate set pieces were coming in even faster and forcing my hands into the hole where the lock grabs the rope. Now with my hands stuck in the lock I yelled to my TD to stop the line. Well we saved the set and my left ring finger lost some skin and had some bruising on my fingers. But I think I was lucky that I didn't lose any more skin and or brake any of my fingers.


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## Darthrob13

Short version of my worst injury is:
Cruise ship
botched scene change
5 stitches in head.


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## Cheever

my worst injury was when we were building a bridge for a show. we had about 5 sheets af 1/2" plywwod on top of some saw horses (bad idea, but i hadn't been there for a few days because i had the flu). well, i tried to move them a little bit and it collapsed on my right arm and leg. wasn't seriously injured because i got out from under it in time (stupid idea to get under it in the first place). i still have a scar on my knee though.
and btw: i wans't all the way under it, just from my right shoulder, arm, and leg.


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## cdub260

Cheever said:


> my worst injury was when we were building a bridge for a show. we had about 5 sheets af 1/2" plywwod on top of some saw horses (bad idea, but i hadn't been there for a few days because i had the flu). well, i tried to move them a little bit and it collapsed on my right arm and leg. wasn't seriously injured because i got out from under it in time (stupid idea to get under it in the first place). i still have a scar on my knee though.
> and btw: i wans't all the way under it, just from my right shoulder, arm, and leg.



Just a brief word of advise Cheever. Sentences generally begin with a capital letter. The shift key is your friend.


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## techieman33

I've fallen off of a stage once. We were loading out a music festival, and there was a 4x4 hole in the deck between the stage and the wing for the roof tower to go through. And stupid me backed right into it and fell about 10' bouncing between the truss and the legs for the decking on the way down. It sucks and I was pretty beat up for a couple of days but I was lucky there were no major injuries.


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## jgarrett1967

I was dropped by a fellow dancer from about 3.5 feet. Pulled every tendon, ligament, acl, etc. from around the knee. Had to have reconstructive surgery and while I still work as a director of middle school productions (choreography, building, etc.) it was a career ender. BEEEEEEEEE careful! It happens so dang fast.


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## LordOfTheTechies

I've broken all my toes at least twice at different times (I can;t find any steel toes boots in my size). They're all crooked and bending funny ways.

This wasn't me, but I saw a guy cut of the tip of his finger with a table saw. Lotsa blood. Pretty cool.

I saw another guy screw the webbing of his thumb to a board (still have NO idea how he managed to do that).


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## jufam44

Didn't happen to me, but I had a friend in NYC who was killed when a 50lb Pig Iron on one of our fly ropes fell from 45' in the air and collided with his head. The worst that happened to me was when I was working on a scaffold, and an idiot technician climbed up the same side of the scaffold I was working on, but on the outside, and the whole thing tipped (top of the scaffold, and my work platform, were about 25' up) propelling me off stage once the scaffold hit the ground. Broke two bones in my arm, dislocated my ankle, and got bruised up. Not fun.


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## photoatdv

Many condolences to you and your friend's family.

Reminder to all loaders ***MAKE SURE THERE IS NOBODY UNDER YOU WHEN YOU ARE LOADING WEIGHTS***


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## Van

photoatdv said:


> Many condolences to you and your friend's family.
> 
> Reminder to all loaders ***MAKE SURE THERE IS NOBODY UNDER YOU WHEN YOU ARE LOADING WEIGHTS***


 
Heard a great one the other day. A freind of mine works for a stage rigging company, apparently a couple of years ago a TD ,at a college, and one of his students were mesing around in the theatre after hours. They had been drinking and fo some reason they were messig with the flys. They got a pipe out of weight, pipe heavy. They had a runaway, and the abor goes shooting to the sky. They hadn't locked down the pig plate. the arbor tops out, pig jumps off, whacks the kid in the head, kids family sues my friends company. It cost them $50K just to make the suit go away. I don't know if this belongs in this thread or not but the prvious story reminded me of it.


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## terminalvelocity16

I personally have only had a few bumps and bruises. But on the other hand I've watched others receive substantial injuries in our theatre. including crawling into a metal spike up in the ceiling rafters resulting in several stitches. Also I saw one of those metal bars that run up the middle of double doors fall over and smash someones head to a pulp, that one resulted in 30 or so stitches and a plastic surgeon.


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## Wolf

terminalvelocity16 said:


> I personally have only had a few bumps and bruises. But on the other hand I've watched others receive substantial injuries in our theatre. including crawling into a metal spike up in the ceiling rafters resulting in several stitches. Also I saw one of those metal bars that run up the middle of double doors fall over and smash someones head to a pulp, that one resulted in 30 or so stitches and a plastic surgeon.



How would the metal bar between the doors fall out? Did they forget to replace some screws after a load-in/out?


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## jeffmoss26

No injuries here but during HS we had a kid taking lights down from our catwalk, he was walking down the stairs and tripped, fell down and the light ended up his chest. They called 911 and all that good stuff...he was OK though. This is why we normally used a rope to haul lights up and down


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## LightingPenguin

Had a 150lb cart full of platforms get away from me and my partner on a hill, ended up riding it/being stuck to it down the entire hill trying to steer it away from a car (which, THANK GOD, it did not hit. I managed to pull it away a few inches and it barely missed it) and ended up being smashed into a cement wall along with all of the platforms. Bruised, broke some platforms, damaged some property, but I didn't hit the car!


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## Esoteric

I have been SO blessed!

I have a scar in my hand from ramming a knife into it while undoing zip ties. I have another one from a cruise ship install. My knee is a little messed up from getting run over by a cherry picker on a cruise ship.

In my time I have done some stupid stuff. I almost fell off an acoustic ceiling. I used to stand on the top run of a 30' A-Frame ladder, I hung backwards off of a trolley 50' above the stage, I unclipped myself to walk across steel at the top of an arena, I have hung upside down off of catwalks, held linesets way (dangerously) out of balance, been rolled around on rolling A-Frames and cherry pickers with no stabalizers in, stood on the safety rails of cherry pickers, climbed truss towers with no fall protection, walked truss with no fall protection, etc. I am surprised I didn't get hurt worse or killed. Stupid, stupid, stupid stuff I did to prove that I was a "good techie".

Man was I an idiot.

Mike


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## jowens

Hopped down off the front of a stage...3.5 feet or so... right before doing sound for a dance recital. Must have landed wrong and by the time the recital was over, I couldn't move. I was out of work, immobile, on my back for 3 weeks. Luckily only a muscle sprain, but...still sucked.


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## Van

LightingPenguin said:


> Had a 150lb cart full of platforms get away from me and my partner on a hill, ended up riding it/being stuck to it down the entire hill trying to steer it away from a car (which, THANK GOD, it did not hit. I managed to pull it away a few inches and it barely missed it) and ended up being smashed into a cement wall along with all of the platforms. Bruised, broke some platforms, damaged some property, but I didn't hit the car!


 
While it's admirable that you didn't hit the car, everyone should remember;
When a peice of heavy equipment gets away from you, unless someone else is in mortal danger, get the heck away. No piece is worth a broken neck, or a trip to the hospital.


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## ShadowPuppet88

Probably just being scared to death...I'll explain.
During Strike, of course, noone ever balances out the fly system. So here we are putting in the new drops and the one i happen to unlock is way off balance and me, being stupid hold on to the rope and fly up about 6 feet in the air. not too high but enough to earn me the day off and some bad mental distress.
It was a good joke afterwards though! haha


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## photoatdv

Well someone SHOULD balance the fly system or tie it off, even during strike. The rope locks are only designed to hold about 50lbs (though they often do hold more).


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## Van

photoatdv said:


> Well someone SHOULD balance the fly system or tie it off, even during strike. The rope locks are only designed to hold about 50lbs (though they often do hold more).


 
At the risk of bringing up a really old debate, they shouldn't be relied upon to hold any weight. It's a brake, a tension device designed to keep the line from moving until you say so. 

On a side note Did I ever tell anyone about the Scottish Rite temple accross the street that has Wooden Arbors, no real rail to speak of and no brakes at all. ..... For another thread I guess.


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## Shillyer

Nothing too bad for me. Scariest for me I think was when a barn door got knocked while moving a set piece. It ended up bouncing off my arm., but if I didn't react it would have hit me right in the head. Fell from aprox. 20ft. I ended up with a cut on my wrist/arm from where I blocked it and a headache after I hit myself in the temple trying to save my head.


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## Esoteric

Yeah, I never count on a brake to hold any weight. I always tie/cinch/lock off a lineset before I take it out of weght.

Mike


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## Esoteric

Not an injury to me, but my first day on the job as an ME at a new arts center, I was hanging off of a catwalk focusing a unit and after I got it right, I dropped the gel and missed the clips, the gel landed, corner first on the TDs head. Luckily he didn't look up when I yelled "heads!"

Mike


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## aporter2012

I was using a table saw, and the piece was alittle too small, and it kicked back on me and hit be right above the groin...I was black and blue for about two weeks...you live and learn i guess...


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## Esoteric

aporter2012 said:


> I was using a table saw, and the piece was alittle too small, and it kicked back on me and hit be right above the groin...I was black and blue for about two weeks...you live and learn i guess...



Ever seen a full sheet of plywood go flying off of a table saw and across a shop?

I have.

Mike


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## Van

Esoteric said:


> Ever seen a full sheet of plywood go flying off of a table saw and across a shop?
> 
> I have.
> 
> Mike


 
That's why everyone has kickback dog and a kerf splitter and a blade guard installed on their table saws, right ? Right? Hey guys, Right ?


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## Esoteric

Van said:


> That's why everyone has kickback dog and a kerf splitter and a blade guard installed on their table saws, right ? Right? Hey guys, Right ?





Sure we do! 

This was in the shop at a large public University (bigger than a lot of regional theater's scene shops) as well! We had 20 cybers, but a 10 year old table saw (that worked perfectly as long as it was kept in good maintenance).

Man it got a hold of that plywood and kicked it 40' across the shop.

Two years later that kid was a head carpenter. One of the best carps I have ever worked with.

Mike


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## jwl868

Esoteric said:


> Ever seen a full sheet of plywood go flying off of a table saw and across a shop?
> 
> I have.
> 
> Mike



Another scary sight is lathe tool shaft flying against a shop wall after the spinning wood on the lathe "grabbed" the tool and pulled it out of the handle. It was just luck that no one was in the way.

Joe


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## Esoteric

jwl868 said:


> Another scary sight is lathe tool shaft flying against a shop wall after the spinning wood on the lathe "grabbed" the tool and pulled it out of the handle. It was just luck that no one was in the way.
> 
> Joe



Dang man. We didn't have a lathe.

Mike


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## renegadeblack

Touched the back end of a Source Four. Burned my thumb real nice, the weird thing was though that my finger never blistered. You could however see where the skin melted which was quite creepy.

Other was we were moving the genie and it went over my foot. I don't recall whose fault it was (I can't help but think it was the other guy ) but it hurt no matter who's fault it was.


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## Esoteric

I had no feeling in my hands for months because of years burning my hands on hot lights. I just got feeling back a year ago and it still isn't back all the way.

I also saw a guy pull a stuck gobo holder out of a (hot) unit and branded himself.

Mike


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## kiwitechgirl

I've had two concussions in theatre...the first was when we were loading gear off an outdoor stage down a ramp onto the truck; I was pushing a flight case of Source 4s when the ramp slipped off the stage (don't ask me how, I don't know - at least I don't remember!). I hit the concrete four feet below, first with my elbow and followed by my head, but fortunately the flight case landed next to me and not on top of me. 

The second one was when I was crawling out from under the stage during a packout - we have big doors which open from the upstage wall to the outside, and to get under the stage you have to open the doors - and one of the set boys got a bit too enthusiastic at that exact moment and released a piece of jammed set by kicking it hard out the door. It landed across the back of my head and my shoulder; I don't remember anything else about that packout except that the head tech wouldn't let me climb up a ladder again, and it was that night that someone showed me the "shark tank" under our auditorium (the theatre used to be an engineering lab, and there's a big hole which was a hydraulic pit) and then I got home and wondered if he'd actually showed me that or if I'd imagined it. Apparently I did fill in an accident report, but I only know this because I've seen it since and it's in my handwriting!


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## misterm

Reading the genie lift stories brings up a few wonderful memories of college. Yeah, had a director get stuck up in a genie lift for a few hours when he was focusing some lights on his own one night. Now he ALWAYS has his cell phone on him when he goes up.
I was up in it one afternoon focusing a barndoor on a par and checking the lamp when my best friend at the board turned it on. Nice loud pop and sparks right next my head. My reaction? "Yeah, turn it off, its fried."
He was just as unlucky. We had a fresnel on the batton that was shorting out while he was focusing. Somehow, the batton swung and struck another. After a nice shower of sparks, Jake came down and asked me to do it. Um no.


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## Dionysus

When I was working for the Blyth Festival, for one show I had to remove the booth window infront of the sound console so I could hear the show (since this show required actual mixing). On the opening night of one of the other shows I was moving the window so I could put it back in before the house opened.

Part of the window broke in my hands (no, it hit nothing). The window dropped since the part my left hand was hanging onto was no-longer attached and landed on my left wrist.

Luckily it landed ontop of my metal watchband. My watchband split in two and I got a 6-inch gash down my left wrist. Looked like I tried to kill myself.

The sound designer and his son were right now, and went to go get the SM to get me medical attention. Thank the gods for that watchband, I am positive without it I would of died, the nearest hospital a half-hour away, along with it's ambulances. 

The SM came running, and found me, shirt off wrapping my shirt around my arm carefully. She was about to call an ambulance when I stopped her.

I told her with a little attention I'd be fine. ... I prolly should of gone for stitches or something, I still have the scar.

So we went to the green room and we looked at the cut. It really wasen't that bad... It was still bleeding, but it missed (by narrow margin) my artery and JUST failed to slice though the large veins above it. I could see them pumping blood just fine, being partially exposed but not cut.

TALK ABOUT LUCKY.

So I got her to throw on some gauze, tape it down and I ran the show.
When I went to the booth through the audience from the green room after being patched up, several people who recognized me gave me odd looks at the large patch of gauze on my wrist.

At intermission the PM came to see me, having only then heard about the accident. I did not feel like getting up for intermission. She offered to run the show, but I stuck it out.

Not long after I got yelled at for missing cue by narrow margin as I reattached my bandaging.
I was running LX with my left and sound with my right.

Also got yelled at for an actor who missed standing on her spike mark. Apparently I missed the fixture having tilted itself UP. lol.


----------



## theatre4jc

I've had a few minor injuries. The funniest I was hanging a black lightweight fabric on a set but to get to the spot to staple it up I had to hang upside down. After taking precautions so I wouldn't fall I started tacking up the fabric. Ended up stapling my thumb to the wood. I was using 2" stables cause it was all we had and the TD didn't want to purchase new staples for a small project. Went through my thumb into the wood. I was stuck there for 20 minutes until someone came in and got me something to pull the staple out without damaging my thumb.

Another story I was on a tour and had to stand in as a dancer for a comedy number. My character was suppose to fall off the stage onto a landing pad. I missed the pad and hit a truss stand. Scooted a fully loaded 30' truss with my head. Bleed for 3 hours during the rest of the show. Should have gotten stitches but never did. Luckily I was on codeine thanks to a previous non-theatre related injury so I never hurt, but it did cause me to bleed more.

The year after I left college on of the carps in the shop cut off a couple fingers on a table saw. And my freshmen year I saw a cheery picker fall off the stage and land on our ATDs head. Those two are the scariest things I've seen or been told of.


----------



## artoonie

It wasn't me who got injured here, but the lighting designer was running around on the catwalk - she's around 70 and fast as a bullet.
I'm sitting at the board, I hear her talking to herself unintelligably about some idea, then I hear a loud bang, a scream, and a "I'm gonna lay down for a while," followed by 30 seconds of not responding.

She apparently ran right into a pole and nearly got a concussion - it was a nasty mess on her forehead.


----------



## Dionysus

I have another injury that was pretty bad (more in the long run)...

Well it started with a 25ft tall wooden post landing on my back when I was bent over cleaning paintbrushes in the paint shop back in college. I couldn't do much of anything for a couple days. Some ***, erm, not nice person... Stood it up (about 6"x6"x25' tall) behind me and took off... I just happened to be right where it wanted to land... REAL safe.

Anyways 2 years later, while working at an old theatre where they don't know what safety is... (Yeah they had an engineer come in to look at fall protection whom said "um, with the structure in here... If anyone where to fall and be caught by fall arrest, with it supported anywhere in the house... Well the building would fall down and land ontop of them!"... So we were not allowed to use fall protection.
Not to mention the way the lighting 'grid' is set up, you cannot PROPERLY set up an extension ladder... In a house that is raked, curved, and has fixed seating... The only way to get at the foh pipes is to lean an extension ladder against them (just barely with most of them) and pray that you can get to the top and tie it off before it slips.
Well one day I was half way up, and the ladder slipped off the pipe.
Down goes a techie, onto the seating.

Not cool. I was asked very kindly not to release the details of that adventure. I don't know why, lol.


----------



## hhslights

Countless head bumps from a low pipe in the cove plus a good electrical shock when I was plugging in an instrument on a catwalk that runs the length of the house while the band was practicing onstage. Friends in the band said that they saw many sparks flying toward the ground.


----------



## JChenault

Two serious injuries - both involving the same wooden A-frame ladder.

First time - focusing the FOH pipe. This involvd setting the ladder in the audience seating, and going up about 20 feet. Went up the ladder, looked up and noticed that suddenly one of the lights was moving to my right. On no - wait - the ladder is tipping over. I remember looking down and thinking 'This could be very bad'. My wife and daughter were in the theatre and saw it all happen. The result was not terrible - a badly sprained ankle that still hurts six years later ( and will for the rest of my life) - but I am still walking around. I consider myself lucky that I am not in paraplegic. 

Second time - I was helping someone move the ladder off the stage. We folded it up and I was carrying one end up the aisle in the house. Somehow I tripped and fell onto a seat. This broke six ribs and got me a couple of ambulance rides and some time in the hospital.

I don't touch that ladder any more ( We put up a focus track from Sapsis for the FOH pipe so I don't have to use it) - and I refuse to help move it.


----------



## tjrobb

Not really worst, but strangest.

Was running lights for the Opera here and had a beltpack headset. I went to hit the GO on the Expression 3 and... POP! ALL the lights in the house and stage go black. Then a few seconds later various circuits, completely at random, turn on to full, and then off, and then on, and then off. Turns out that there was a ground fault in our DMX line that had shorted itself to ground via my right ring finger and beltpack. After cycling the breakers on the dimmer racks the lights are still in crazy disco mode, and to resolve the problem we had to unplug every item run by DMX. Destroyed the E3 I/O board (let the smoke out), had to find a spare for the show, but was able to use the backup disk.

The reason I didn't noticed the ground fault right away is that when it happened it fried the nerves in the finger. Took almost a year for the finger to regain feeling.

Moral of the story? Opto-isolation is a good thing.


----------



## nobl13

In four years as a lighting tech, my worst injury was the result of a prop and lots of stupidity. Loading out Tuna Christmas, there was a papier-mâché "tumbleweed tree" in the lobby. I decided to tackle it.

Long story short: Stone floor, dislocated shoulder.

Second worst was probably the inch-long gash I got from a MAC 2k road case while loading out the Cats national tour. I think some of my blood is still on their soft goods.


----------



## ReiRei

A few months ago at my old high school theatre, our booth was a horrible mess and I had some downtime so I decided to go up and clean it a little. I brought a couple of my tech friends with me who seemed to be just there to chill but at that moment, it was okay with me. 

So there was this mess of cables under one of our followspots. A Lycian 1238 super club spot if I remember correctly. I pick up one of the xlr cables that isn't plugged into anything and I start standing up only to be stopped by the corner edge of the spotlight jamming into my head. I stopped, pushed it out of the way and thought everything was fine and no more than five minutes later I start to notice that my head is bleeding profusely. My friends who were doing nothing grabbed me a towel and I just chilled out for a bit. But it left a pretty sweet gash in my head which I usually attribute now to an epic battle with a dragon.

No stitches or anything but it's taught me to be uber aware of my surroundings. Head wounds are no fun, especially because they bleed too much and all over the place. Plus, I had to run a show three hours afterwards so that was interesting.


----------



## cdub260

ReiRei said:


> A few months ago at my old high school theatre, our booth was a horrible mess and I had some downtime so I decided to go up and clean it a little. I brought a couple of my tech friends with me who seemed to be just there to chill but at that moment, it was okay with me.
> 
> So there was this mess of cables under one of our followspots. A Lycian 1238 super club spot if I remember correctly. I pick up one of the xlr cables that isn't plugged into anything and I start standing up only to be stopped by the corner edge of the spotlight jamming into my head. I stopped, pushed it out of the way and thought everything was fine and no more than five minutes later I start to notice that my head is bleeding profusely. My friends who were doing nothing grabbed me a towel and I just chilled out for a bit. But it left a pretty sweet gash in my head which I usually attribute now to an epic battle with a dragon.
> 
> No stitches or anything but it's taught me to be uber aware of my surroundings. Head wounds are no fun, especially because they bleed too much and all over the place. Plus, I had to run a show three hours afterwards so that was interesting.



I did something similar at the Pageant today. I was just starting to wire up one of our sets and stood up right into a rather sharp portion of the set. The result? Two puncture marks on the top of my head and a bit of blood. While it wasn't a gusher, the larger of the two punctures is still oozing a bit 5 hours later.


----------



## mstaylor

Not the worst but the dumbest was when I was setting up a trick for a rodeo clown. He wanted to rappel into the bullfighting. He had experience but no gear. I set it up and loaned him one of my belts. Usually we set a double line and rappel in after the rig is done, that way we just pull the rope down. Here I set a single line and actually attached it to a rigging point. Our rule is the same as most, whoever sets the rope goes first. I get on the rope, kick through the 2x4 drop ceiling, then decided to hotdog a little. I dropped about 30ft free fall before trying to slow down. As I was doing this the clown looks down and says, "That's going to hurt." Well it did, I got to the ground, got my figure 8 away from me, and discovered I had blistered my hand through my gloves. I had made the same drop many times on a double line, double friction, half speed. With the single line I was cooking and I created my own mess.


----------



## pacman

I ripped a gash in my pinky finger. Didn't think much about it at the time because it went numb, but after a half hour of applying pressure & no signs of stopping the bleeding, I headed to the ER. Got three stitches & a tetanus shot. The nurse was beautiful.

Here's how it happened. At my previous theatre, we constructed a steel plate attached to a 2x4 to use as a bridge in the gap between the deck of the orchestra lift & the pit floor, primarily for moving a $140,000 Bosendorfer 290SE Imperial Grand piano and its twin non-SE piano. The 2x4 was pretty much a perfect fit for the gap & kept the steel plate from shifting as we loaded pianos or other equipment.

One concert required use of one of the pianos for the first half but not the second. During intermission, we moved the piano onto the lift, lowered to the pit level, placed the steel plate across the gap & moved the piano into the pit. When I reached down to remove the plate, it was in a spot where it was binding a bit & required a little more force than usual to lift up & out. As I gave it a good lateral shove, I felt a rip across my pinky finger. The next day, I took at good look at the pit wall in the area where we had placed the steel plate. Turns out a nail pulled out of the plywood concrete forms during construction & the rusty, pointed end was left sticking out of the concrete wall.


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## listerofsmeg

I was doing a show in a theater, and i was sitting in the Tech Office and there was a call to the stage so another tech and my self get up to go onstage. I basicly walked out the door and hit my head on the 1st Aid box that was mounted on the wall. I then fell to the floor. I then got up to the open the 1st Aid box for a Ice pak and there was none in there. So I walked in the Tech Office and just sat on the chair. The other tech came in, and said "Whats wrong mate, Where wore you on stage" 

I just repiled "WHERE ARE THE HELL IS THE 1ST AID PAK THINGYS"


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## NevilleLighting

Ok. For those of you that know me, you understand why I am posting here. Five years ago I took over the position of Production Manager for a regional theatre. The first night of my first tech someone (I don't remember who) asked for all of the house doors to be shut. Well. I had been out of town for a gig and had not known that the sound department had temorarily run a cable across the TOP of the seats to the tech table. I was scurrying across the house to shut the lobby doors when all of a sudden the floor came up to smack me in the face. The sound cable had caught me mid-thigh and pivoted me into a position where I could only break my fall with my face. I now have 4 fake teeth across my upper smile because of that.

Two years ago, during a production of **** Yankees, I asked for the rigging cables on a piece of scenery to be longer because the pipe would be visible to the audience. That piece of scenery was a hard-cover scoreboard that weighed about 400 pounds. Unfortunately for me the guy handling the rigging was a bit underqualified for this task. As in most place accidents, a series of events led to quite another event. A couple carps were on the grid hammering sheaves to adjust the spacing of linesets which induced vibration into the fly system. 

The swaging of the cable clips was wrong for the cable size. 

We were dealing with a guy doing rigging that could not admit that he was not properly trained and was in over his head. 

So, I am also the lighting designer at this theatre. I walk onstage to stand in place so the electricain can focus a light on me. He's headed up in the lift when all of a sudden I hear the loudest sound I have ever heard in my life. Next to me, as in inches from my head, has appeared the wall from hell. Turns out, this 16'x20' hard cover scoreboard had fallen silently from it's ppe. It landed on my right shoulder and knocked me down. It wa so sudden that I thought this thing had come out of the ground. Luckily the **** YANKEES set had a solid, built in dugout to which I crawled for safety. No one that saw what happened thought I had survived this. Believe it or not, I had not broken bones. However, my right arm is still not right two years later. I've been working on stamina for it, but I still throw like a girl (sorry ladies) even though I had a pretty good arm before that. Trivial, yes, but it acknowledges the effects this injury had on me. 

Eight years ago my wife was pushing Snoopy's doghouse from one rehearsal hall to another when it hit a bump in the sidewalk. She dislocated two disks between her vertabrea and hasn't been able to work since. She has now had three spinal surgeries and is well on her way to a 4th. 

The moral of these stories, we live and work in an evironrment that is physically dangerous no matter how invincible you might feel. In our business you could die tomorrow due to someone else's minor error. 

Live that, be safe and be there to focus another light tomorrow. 

-David


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## photoatdv

That's scary!!! I know it scared the crap out of us when we had a (not-so-well-secured) extension cord fall from the flies. Turned out when we were putting away the acoustical shell someone had coiled like a 20' stagepin extension cord and laid it behind a support on the shell. Well we raised it okay and started lowering the curtains and stuff for the next production and best as we could figure that caused enough vibrations to make the cord fall. I know, this is no where near as bad as the giant wall falling, but it did scare everyone.

I've also seen a couple of close calls with runaways-- won't go into the details -- it was one of those series of events which by themselves wouldn't be a real issue + bad luck + lack of sleep = real problem type thing. One of them one of the pros was slowly being lifted (he has to weigh at least 150lbs) and with another guy they could barely hold it (yes that was fixed asap).

Couple from the last couple of shows (first one didn't happen to me... but I was there). Our LD managed to nearly slice the tip of his finger off on the comms (He swore that is the last time he's touching audio!). Then next show I had unlocked one of the linesets and my assistant needed help, so I started to step over to help her (still holding the line with one hand) right into the lock. Ouch! Though it was more surprising than painful and I ended up half laughing half crying for like 5 minutes (still holding that line...)


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## Wolf

photoatdv said:


> Our LD managed to nearly slice the tip of his finger off on the comms (He swore that is the last time he's touching audio!).



how did that even happen???


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## photoatdv

Well I don't know exactally. I was working on the show(so there but not right there... wish I'd been right there) and when I walked back in he had assorted colors of Gaff tape all over his finger. I tried to get him to tell me what happened, but all he'd say was that he sliced the tip of his finger almost off on the comms. I think it was just the very tip because I didn't see blood soaking through.

Never could find anything sharp on those comms!


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## Teber

One stupid thing that I have seen is we go from the fly rail to the loading rail via riding the flys (I DO NOT ADVISE THIS) and the new kid tried it on a locked one and slid down bare handed on the ropes - he had horrible rope burn. And its true.. I'm not the smartest for riding them to make my trip quicker.


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## kiwitechgirl

Teber said:


> One stupid thing that I have seen is we go from the fly rail to the loading rail via riding the flys (I DO NOT ADVISE THIS) and the new kid tried it on a locked one and slid down bare handed on the ropes - he had horrible rope burn. And its true.. I'm not the smartest for riding them to make my trip quicker.



Do you have a death wish? I know someone who got fired from a venue crew for doing that ONCE and if you did that on my watch you could kiss a career in theatre goodbye. Who on earth is in charge in your theatre that you get away with this?


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## photoatdv

I have to say that is flat out dumb and should NEVER be allowed. Even my crazy out of control crew didn't do that! Though I did hear some stories of them doing it before I got there (the crew was entirely student run at one point-- basically one of the kids parents owner a staging co. and he could magically get whatever they wanted for practically nothing as long as they pleased him).

So moral of this story stop that NOW! Waiting for What Rigger to come chew you out.


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## ruinexplorer

My worst was a foot injury. One venue I worked in was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. They never really considered large travelling productions coming into this house, so the loading dock was two curved ramps, only one of which effectively could have been used to bring equipment through the loading doors. Needless to say, the work around was to keep all the trucks in the parking lot and manually move all equipment up and down the ramp. For heavier equipment, forklifts were used. During one load-out, I was assisting a fork pushing a row of feeder trunks up the ramp. The driver was inexperienced (love some of those staging companies who don't believe in training and still get contracts all over the country) and was about to kill the engine. The driver gunned the engine which made the boxes lurch which ran over my foot and trapped my leg under the trunk. He continued to drive another 10 feet or so, even though I and the other spotters were screaming at him to stop. I had to scramble to keep from having additional trunks running over me.

Resulet was me going to the hospital and having X-rays done on my foot. Since there were no major fractures, nothing was done. However, 10 years later, I developed a major cluster of cists (bigger than the foot doctor had ever seen). It seems that if workman's comp had paid for something other than an X-ray, they could have seen the soft tissue dammage. So just be very aware when you have an accident, you may have consequences down the road. It's much better to play it safe now than deal with those issues.


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## mstaylor

We had a guy years ago step between stage sections that had been disconnected and ripped his quad from the bone. Not pretty!


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## CenterSpot

The Aladdin Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, 1976.

I was crawling out of the ante-pro after replacing a burnout between shows. I was crawling towards the catwalk and stood up as I approached it.

A Note:

In order to re-open this theatre, which had been closed down in anticipation of closing the entire complex, fire sprinklers had been installed throughout that had not previously existed. 


Back to the Story;

I was not accustomed to them being there and stood straight up into one. You know the starred wheel that resembles the rowel on a set of spurs? Yep! I found it!! Ripped a 4" gash in my scalp AND the force of the impact sent me back to my knees. I shook the stars from my vision and REMAINED on my knees till I got to the exit from the attic to the booth. Bleeding on the 2" x 12" boards all the way.

Went to Sunrise Hospital, got 5 stitches and 2 aspirin, (stopped at the "Office #2" on Desert Inn Road and had a double of Jack straight up) and returned to run my Strong Trouper carbon-arc lamp for the 2nd show of Lou Rawls at midnight.

My head electrician/board operator, Jerry Swaney, was pleased to see me as this was a one spot show and had COUNTED on me to return rather than call the hall to get a replacement. What a sweet man and true live theatre lightman. I'll tell more stories about Jerry, the Blue Room at the Trop and other stories some other day. 

"Hey, barman, you know, of all the barkeepers I've known............................................................................. you're one of 'em. 

Pour me another Jack, please".


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## chrisgriffin

one time i was trying to figure out a daisy chain problem under some truss when the light board op. flashed the strobe lights immediatly blinding me, only to get conked in the back of the head by a mac 700 wash....=/....funny now that i look back on it tho


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## rwhealey

CenterSpot said:


> A Note:
> 
> In order to re-open this theatre, which had been closed down in anticipation of closing the entire complex, fire sprinklers had been installed throughout that had not previously existed.



When they installed new sprinklers in my theater, they put a pipe across a catwalk at a height of 6'.

Everybody else that works in the theater is shorter than 6', and didn't notice it when looking the place over.

I'm 6'2".

Ouch.


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## MillburyAuditorium

I'm glad to say we have never had any major injuries at our school theatre. Besides scrapes and bruises moving things, mostly me thinking I can carry the mixer by myself xD

Doesn't count as injury..but, Also a dance recital teacher almost having her baby on our stage because she almost got hit by the fire curtain because the emergency lights didn't come online for a while because there was a power surge, not a power out, resulting in the emergency generator kicking in, I guess theres a difference? I dunno, but thank you emergency transfer cabinets.

Well, I almost hit some with a rack of lights, by not paying attention while lowering a fly. :neutral: Or maybe I was?


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## Drewdesign

Flying on the wrong side of a fly line causing rope burns...


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## bull

Well, my worst I would say, was probably a couple of months ago when I was flying out a set, when i found out that somebody had loosened the brake and jerry-rigged it closed the last time, it began flying back at me, and i grabbed it with both hands in my attempt to stop it, which pulled me up about four or five feet, but i also got 3rd Degree burns out of it... didn't realize how bad it was, went to the hospital about 8 hours later and the doctor just looked at me and said "Well son what the he** did you do to your hand" It actually looked like my skin was melting off...

Now, a couple of days before, i got 1st degree burns when, right after a show, during notes, I heard the ATD call for help, frantically, now he is a huge guy, i have never known him to need help lifting anything, i get back there and it turns out the grand drape was kinda stuck/jammed... overall broken, so i got there to help, and a couple others did too, whom were huge, in the end i ended up about four feet off the ground on the rope, when it suddenly jumped and released... in my attempt to get everybody back, and get myself out of the fly system, i burned my arm... still have a cool looking scar too...


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## zmb

Thankfully, haven't had much happen to me. The worst yet is an Lycian followspot smashing down on my thumb while trying to raise it.


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## DuckJordan

I have been fortunate not to have any injuries except for the minor screws or nails occasonally, but there is a guy that tends to hurt himself on a daily basis.

He has an anger issue, if he misses a nail and hits his thumb he takes that hand and punches something hard (generally concrete), recently he just broke two knuckles because of this. He is a very hard worker (sometimes i wonder if he does roids)


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## zuixro

DuckJordan said:


> He has an anger issue, if he misses a nail and hits his thumb he takes that hand and punches something hard (generally concrete), recently he just broke two knuckles because of this. He is a very hard worker (sometimes i wonder if he does roids)



I know someone who threw the fence to the (brand new) table saw across the shop because his cut was a little off.



I know someone else who was putting together a frame using ripped down one-by. He stapled down from the top, the staple hit a knot, curved out, and went like a half inch into his thumb. He pulled it out, bandaged it up, and went back to work.


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## irish79

Back in December i was working on a show in our black box when the roll door got stuck on the 10 foot platform in front of it. The stairs were not in yet and i was in a hurry to go home so i grabed a ladder to go up and fix it. It turned out that someone had split and extension ladder in half and i grabbed the part without the feet.(the rest of this is from a third party as i don't remeber what happened) When i got to the top and went to get on the platform the base slide out and i fell, caught my self on the platform, but smashed my face on the platform and flinched. This threw me backwards and i ended up landing shoulder and head first on the ladder laying on the floor. The result was a ride in the ambulance to be treated for a sevear concussion, 5 stitches on the frore head, and 10 on in the scalp.


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## MarshallPope

Luckily, I have not suffered any major injuries in the theatre, but my worst one has sort of an interesting story.
Last year we were striking the set after the opera, Gianni Schicchi.I was going down the fly rail, flying everything out so we would have enough floor space to move everything. I got to the painted drop, which was awkwardly weighted anyway, since it was on the same batten as a set of legs. The problem was that the drop was shorter than the legs, so they were pooled on the floor. I'm still not sure exactly how it happened, but somehow the line was arbor heavy. I started flying it out, and got it going a little too fast. (stupid thing #1) I stopped it, and was lifted so that I was standing on the fly rail. I figured it coudn't get any worse, so I continued to fly it out, while still standing on the rail. (Stupid thing #2) It got going a little too fast again (#3) so that I was standing on a support brace about 6-8" above the deck. It was still moving, so I tried to find a place to hold on to. The first thing I got ahold of was the the track for the carriage. (#4) About two seconds later, the carriage finds my hand, and my fingers just happen to be in the path of the metal wheels, and were quickly run over. I grabbed the weight rods as soon as I could reach them, and slowly lowered it the rest of the way. I was able to get a nearby tech's attention (He is really quite useless. Just saying.) and got him to lock the line. I climbed down and found a bandaid and finished the strike.

Damage report: a cut on my pointer finger and the crap torn out of my middle finger, along with a black fingernail for a couple of months. It could have been much worse, but it definitely hurt, and taught me a lesson.


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## gcpsoundlight

Burning yourself on a pofile is always good...... especially the 1k ones! :-0


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## SHARYNF

This one is more humorous but still dangerous

A number of years back my husband was giving a presentation using a large 12x12 fast fold screen that the house av department had set up in the hotel. In the middle of the presentation he started to notice that the audience was getting very very intent on his presentation. He turned to see the screen starting to fall over (they AV house had forgotten to lock and sand bag the stand) and JUST made it out from under the screen before it came crashing down

Sharyn


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## ajb

Haven't done too badly overall. 

My freshman year of college--first two weeks in fact--didn't see the 3" screw sticking out of a table I was moving and sunk it nice and deep into the palm of my hand. Five minutes later I got a crash course in the delayed response of the vagus nerve to subcutaneous manipulation. Freaked the hell out of the TD when I passed out while cleaning it out and got an ambulance ride to the hospital. 

A couple months later and unrelated to the above I was diagnosed with an L5-S1 herniation after a particularly grueling show. Had an absolutely miserable six months of various treatment before hitting on the right physical therapy combo that finally got me moving again. Still have nuisance-level sciatica and low back pain, but I've learned to manage it.


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## JudyJoe

It was my birthday, SM'ing a low budget one-woman show produced in a studio. LD was also the LX Tech and doing some quick focus notes before running off to a paying LD gig. Unbeknownst to me, she left her wrench on top of a 6ft step ladder which I moved during my preset. Wrench connected with my forehead & blood gushed...just as the Director, Actress & admin staff walked in with my birthday cake & singing Happy Birthday.


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## Les

JudyJoe said:


> It was my birthday, SM'ing a low budget one-woman show produced in a studio. LD was also the LX Tech and doing some quick focus notes before running off to a paying LD gig. Unbeknownst to me, she left her wrench on top of a 6ft step ladder which I moved during my preset. Wrench connected with my forehead & blood gushed...just as the Director, Actress & admin staff walked in with my birthday cake & singing Happy Birthday.



Oooh... OUCH. Leaving a wrench (or anything) on a ladder is a HUGE no-no. That will get someone fired in a lot of places. Glad you're okay!


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## chris325

1 type of fixture, 2kw, 3 burns so far: Colortran 8 inch fresnel.

Other than that and scrapes, splinters, etc., not much so far (knock on wood.)


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## ptero

Well, there was the time I blew up. 

I was sitting on the floor having finished loading a 3' long flashpot. It was my own fault - bad communication and poor practice at the time - I saw it ignite at one end. and travel along. kinda slowly... 

I was very lucky with just 1st degree burns on my arms and hands - pretty much elbows to fingertips. They shadowed and protected my face. With glasses, eyes were untouched and the nose was a touch red. This was a LONG time ago and yes, proper equipment, practice and protection are long since well implemented. 

It all added up to a night admitted and a month at home. Of course with a design due in a few days. A friend came over and he drew instruments as I pointed and we got that next show drawn...

Lasting effects? My nose turns red easily - The Sun and Alcohol will both do it!


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## Morpheus

chris325 said:


> 1 type of fixture, 2kw, 3 burns so far: Colortran 8 inch fresnel.
> 
> Other than that and scrapes, splinters, etc., not much so far (knock on wood.)


Same, except it was the Strand ERS', and only 1K or 750's.


But still... F'n Strands.....


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## edmedmoped

Nothing really at the moment, but something really weird happened last year where I dropped a TV on the tip of my finger and I went dizzy and felt sick. That was rather odd seeing as it wasn't that bad an injury...

That lead to me operating my followspot with my finger in a bandage


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## chris325

Morpheus said:


> Same, except it was the Strand ERS', and only 1K or 750's.
> 
> 
> But still... F'n Strands.....



Haven't had to work with Strands, but I have no idea why the Colortrans have such poor heat management systems (in lekos and fresnels.) Hardly any areas of the fixtures that you can touch without injury, and it's really easy when focusing or changing gobos to brush an arm on the fixture. Even Colortran boards are injury-prone (scraped a finger on the go button border of the Innovator.)


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## littleowl

After reading all of these I'm scared that at any moment something bad could possibly happen while in a theatre, lol.

The worst for me was just hitting an index finger with a hammer really badly and it's a bit more plump than the other one. And I used to have just nice hands and fingers, lol.


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## Noble

Dislocated shoulder while striking _A Year With Frog and Toad_; relocated it manually and kept loading the truck. It makes an odd popping noise now and hurts when it's humid.


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## masterelectrician2112

littleowl said:


> The worst for me was just hitting an index finger with a hammer really badly and it's a bit more plump than the other one. And I used to have just nice hands and fingers, lol.



There goes any possibility of a hand model job! . My worst injury was makita-ing my thumbnail!


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## Scarrgo

For me it seems I have cut myself more times than I can remember, but the worst was I decided to be in the show (Guys and Dolls) and took a fall during the Luck Me A Lady number, well, I was kind of pile drived head first into the the deck, which caused me to fracture a vertebra in my neck. Didnt feel a thing, even though I was laying on the stage, ring of people around me and a par 64 work light shining in my face. The only thing missing was the chalk outline. The Doc said I got lucky, I missed by one vertebra from being paralyzed from the neck down. I guess it was not my time yet.

Still have neck trouble from time to time 

Sean...


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## Parker

i watched my former TD panic at the rail during a "fly away" and grab the rope.
he turned his fingers into what looked like overcooked hotdogs (split wide open).
not a pretty sight.
he was glad it was his stupidity and not one of us.


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## caithnard

Parker said:


> i watched my former TD panic at the rail during a "fly away" and grab the rope.
> he turned his fingers into what looked like overcooked hotdogs (split wide open).
> not a pretty sight.
> he was glad it was his stupidity and not one of us.



Ah, the above is the same as my worst injury. I was flying a pipe out and, assuming the weight had been adjusted correctly (it had been sitting in for the better part of two weeks) wasn't paying attention. I had one hand loosely holding the rope when I unlocked it, so when it started moving my first instinct was to grab it (the "pipe weight" spray-painted onto our bricks is not accurate, so we often have pipes slightly off-weight). 
A very loud crash and a few dropped bits of ceiling tile later, I lost all of the skin off the fingers of my right hand and had the fun task of sheepishly interrupting the TDs dinner to explain what had happened.

Actually, speaking of grabbing things on instinct, one of my friends dropped a saw he was putting away and immediately tried to grab it by the blade. He now has some interesting serrated cuts on his fingers.


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## n1ist

I know about that instinctive grabbing thing. We can add soldering irons to the list of bad things to grab when they fall...
/mike


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## cdub260

n1ist said:


> I know about that instinctive grabbing thing. We can add soldering irons to the list of bad things to grab when they fall...
> /mike



I've got a small scar on my left wrist from a soldering iron. About ten years ago I was soldering something. I don't remember what, set the soldering iron down briefly and in a moment of inattention leaned my wrist into it. It took a while for that one to heal.


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## photoatdv

I've quite nearly grabbed a falling soldering iron on multiple occasions... especially while doing repairs as the house is opening


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## Syphilis

I got a one and five-eighths inch screw embedded in my eye for a day. Or a large piece of it, at least, which is why I no longer lie underneath platforms screwing upwards without eye protection.


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## MisterTim

The worst injury I have had in theatre was to my ego when I ripped my pants...

Granted, I haven't been in theatre long compared to you guys (4 years) but I've not yet hurt myself in any manner worth remembering.


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## cdub260

MisterTim said:


> Granted, I haven't been in theatre long compared to you guys (4 years) but I've not yet hurt myself in any manner worth remembering.



Hopefully this will remain true for the duration of your theatre career.


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## thelightguy87

I was in a genie lift that tipped over while i was 20' up focusing lights.

Broke my upper arm(Hemerus), Elbow, Broken Rib, Bruised lung, which then developed pneumonia, 3 fractures to my pelvis and 1 fracture to my hip. 2 weeks in a hospital, 11 days in rehab, and i still go to therapy every day and won't go back to work for another 2 months.

Definitely my worst injury, and don't think I'll top it, while working in the theater.


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## mjw56

i havent made it through any event in my theater without bleeding. i almost made it through my most recent show until i did something rather stupid with an extension ladder. the ladder has 2 small handrails that extend up the bottom 5-6 rungs with no caps on top. while having 4 students hold the ladder strait up i climbed up and extended the ladder to reach the grid. on the way down i slipped and dug my hip into the top of the rail. i now have a 10" vertical scar that doesnt look to be fading away
WOO HOO Battlescars!


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## Wolf

thelightguy87 said:


> I was in a genie lift that tipped over while i was 20' up focusing lights.
> 
> Broke my upper arm(Hemerus), Elbow, Broken Rib, Bruised lung, which then developed pneumonia, 3 fractures to my pelvis and 1 fracture to my hip. 2 weeks in a hospital, 11 days in rehab, and i still go to therapy every day and won't go back to work for another 2 months.
> 
> Definitely my worst injury, and don't think I'll top it, while working in the theater.



How did it tip over???


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## CrazyTechie

My latest and greatest (yes I manage to find myself hurt pretty good once a school year so far) was during the light hang for the recent dance concert. We were hanging ladders on all of our electrics and I was moving a Little Giant ladder from stage right to stage left and I somehow managed to knock out a barn door from one of the fresnels and it fell about two or three feet before it hit me in the head. It left about a half inch laceration in my head.

Well when I went to the insta care they took a look at it and put two staples in my head and I just had them taken out friday of last week.


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## NJLX

A fellow student missed with a pneumatic stapler during load-in for our opera this year, and put a staple 1/4" into my thumb. hooray 4am mistakes


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## cdub260

Nathaniel said:


> A fellow student missed with a pneumatic stapler during load-in for our opera this year, and put a staple 1/4" into my thumb. hooray 4am mistakes



I had a similar incident with a pneumatic stapler 14 years ago, except I did it to myself. Stapling plastic under a set for a small pool of water, I put a staple through the joint of my left middle finger.


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## soundmsam

In our musical production we just finished we were striking our scaffolding slide, and as I was steadying myself on a ledger, the idiot next to me took the ledger off causing me to fall 10 feet right into a row of seats.


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## manuallyfocused

About a year ago I was making a custom bracket for a door that had to get kicked down on cue. I grabbed a grinder from the tool room and went to work cleaning up some of my welds, grinding in a 1/4" space between two 1/4" plates. Unbeknownst to me, I had picked a grinder with a wheel that had a big chunk missing from it, and it ended up catching on the steel and shooting up to hit me in the face. The body of the grinder smashed my nose, and the grinding wheel carved a groove across one of the lenses of my glasses (regular glasses, not safety glasses. thankfully plastic frames and polycarbonate lenses). At this point I let go of the trigger and of the grinder, which fell into a metal trash can right next to me. I walked over to the sink and washed off my nose, bandaged it up, and went back to my workstation. Then I noticed a burning smell. It turned out that the grinder had fallen into a metal trashcan full of sawdust and had set the sawdust on fire. I went back to the sink, got a bucket of water, and dowsed the fire. Then I went and sat down for a bit. 

My nose was swollen and bloody for a few weeks aftewards, but nothing was broken and it healed remarkably quickly. And I went back to the place I bought my glasses and they replaced the scratched lens under the warranty for the coating on the lens! All that's left is a little scratch in the frame that nobody but me knows is there.

I've also dewalt/milwaukee/makita'd most of my fingers and palms, stapled a finger or two, and smashed my various digits more times than I can count. But my grinder experience was certainly the worst I've had so far, and hopefully the worst I'll ever have.


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## nithin1997

The worst would be having a 20lb counterweight dropped on your foot from 5 feet.


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## cdub260

nithin1997 said:


> The worst would be having a 20lb counterweight dropped on your foot from 5 feet.



I've done that with a 30 lb. counterweight from 2 feet.


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## Soxred93

cdub260 said:


> I've done that with a 30 lb. counterweight from 2 feet.



I think we've ALL dropped a stage weight on our feet at SOME point...


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## MarshallPope

Soxred93 said:


> I think we've ALL dropped a stage weight on our feet at SOME point...



I haven't... yet... Crap. I shouldn't have said that. Although I have pinched my fingers with them way too many times.


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## zuixro

Soxred93 said:


> I think we've ALL dropped a stage weight on our feet at SOME point...



Steel toed boots.

Ran over my foot with a full length Steinway Grand Piano the other day. Didn't hurt. Did bend the steel cap a little. (it looks ok, but it feels a little different)


----------



## mstaylor

My worst theatre injury is now a torn achilles. I tripped stepping a cable pick that had been lowered in during strike but was laying across a 12in truss. You would think I could step over it but evidently, not so much. I am now in a walking boot. The Dr said I could walk on it if it didn't hurt as long as I was in the boot. I did it a couple of Sundays ago, went to the Dr on monday and SMed a 6 day event starting on Tuesday. I'm thinking she didn't figure on my 10 to 14 hr days.


----------



## SteveB

mstaylor said:


> My worst theatre injury is now a torn achilles. I tripped stepping a cable pick that had been lowered in during strike but was laying across a 12in truss. You would think I could step over it but evidently, not so much. I am now in a walking boot. .



HEY, I got one of those (walking boot).

I missed the "Pit going down" call a week ago, landed bad when it was 3" down, out a week+half. One seriously screwed up ankle, but possibly and only just marginally better then a torn Achilles.


----------



## ScottT

SteveB said:


> HEY, I got one of those (walking boot).



Hey me three! Except mine was from running steeplechase, yeah I do get out of the theatre sometimes...


----------



## belexes

Logos said:


> At the end of a long (very long) day I stepped out of a genie that I was convinced was at floor level. It wasn't. Fell 10 - 12 feet. Amazingly I got up and walked away and did my back in half an hour later lifting one stage weight.
> Connected?
> Probably.


 
I know this is an old post but I have to ask. How do you just "step out" of a genie? I assume one side isn't just left open?


----------



## ajb

belexes said:


> I know this is an old post but I have to ask. How do you just "step out" of a genie? I assume one side isn't just left open?



Most lifts have some sort of gate on one side to make them easier to get in/out of. On Genie (and IIRC, JLG) AWPs, the mid-rail on one side slides up to the top rail, and you climb between it and the toeboard. Many places find that sliding rail to be a hassle, and will keep it tied up to the top rail to keep it out of the way. I've also seen some lifts where the bar is just plain broken. But even when that bar is intact and functioning properly, climbing in and out of a lift can become such a natural motion that you do it without thinking about it, at which point it just takes a momentary mental vacation to do it while the platform is up.


----------



## belexes

But then I imagine it still takes a lot of effort and some thought to have an accident like that. You still have to squeeze between the bars. You likely have to duck from the top one because they're probably not up to human height. I'm maybe missing something but all I can picture is somebody intentionally getting out from the small space between the bars. It's just a weird accident to have done to yourself unintentionally.


----------



## GreyWyvern

Logos said:


> *At the end of a long (very long) day* I stepped out of a genie that I was convinced was at floor level. It wasn't. Fell 10 - 12 feet. Amazingly I got up and walked away and did my back in half an hour later lifting one stage weight.
> Connected?
> Probably.



Notice Logos said it was at the end of a very long day. It was that momentary mental vacation, like ajb said. Just another example of why working long hours can be dangerous. When you are tired, you don't process things as quickly or clearly.

I've done the same thing. I was only 3-4 feet up, luckily, but it still messed up my back.


----------



## photoatdv

Well I managed to burn myself on a soldering iron and cut my finger on the same project (both involving not enough time/sleep/help). First wasn't too bad, later required liberal application of super glue to get it to stop bleeding enough I could go back to work.


----------



## stagehand1983

Pinched my hand, broke a nail, nothing too dramatic. yet


----------



## cpf

Not really a long-lasting injury, but super-glued my hand and glasses to my forehead, along with 1 eye closed along the way. Can only really blame myself, I felt I was so smart by not pointing it at my face, but I still had my face about 16mm from the work surface (re-attaching some wind filters to headset mics) when it splashed up. It was an interesting run to the nearest sink past wayyyy too many people who would later mention this mishap at every possibility.


----------



## flash1322

I think the worst i've done is stepped on a nail during strike not fun


----------



## nd925a

No big accidents to speak of, but my disregard for OSHA would get me fired from a real theatre Dizzy sick in a suspended ceiling off the catwalk is always fun


----------



## shiben

nd925a said:


> No big accidents to speak of, but my disregard for OSHA would get me fired from a real theatre Dizzy sick in a suspended ceiling off the catwalk is always fun


 
Holy S*** that sounds terrifying!


----------



## nd925a

It was more funny than anything because of the way I was sick. Looking back It's a miracle I didn't put my foot in the wrong spot and fall through.


----------



## LXPlot

Well...ummm...this morning I grabbed a runaway rope and got lifted into the air. I have third degree ropeburns on my hands....


----------



## kiwitechgirl

LXPlot said:


> Well...ummm...this morning I grabbed a runaway rope and got lifted into the air. I have third degree ropeburns on my hands....


 
What on earth possessed you to do that? Regardless of the damage it may have done, I would never have even thought of doing that - let it go!


----------



## What Rigger?

Third degree burns? So...you're in the hospital...right???


----------



## nuggety

kiwitechgirl said:


> What on earth possessed you to do that? Regardless of the damage it may have done, I would never have even thought of doing that - let it go!


 
I thought anyone working on the fly system is trained to warn instead of stop.


----------



## BrockTucker

nuggety said:


> I thought anyone working on the fly system is trained to warn instead of stop.


 

If they were trained properly there likely wouldn't have been a runaway situation in the first place.


----------



## chausman

LXPlot said:


> Well...ummm...this morning I grabbed a runaway rope and got lifted into the air. I have third degree ropeburns on my hands....


 

BrockTucker said:


> nuggety said:
> 
> 
> 
> I thought anyone working on the fly system is trained to warn instead of stop.
> 
> 
> 
> If they were trained properly there likely wouldn't have been a runaway situation in the first place.
Click to expand...

Well...He probably won't be doing that again in the near future.  And, what training? The first time I used a fly system at a local high school, the extent of training was "call it when you fly anything in or out, put your foot under that piece of metal, release the brake, and keep it moving slowly." Seriously. By the way, the guy who was training us for that, no longer works there. AND, that won't be the high school I will go to when I start next year.


----------



## nd925a

> And, what training?



I don't remember ever having any training...though at my high school the only reason I use the fly system is to fly the projector screen in and out before or after an assembly.


----------



## icewolf08

Possibly the worst theatre injury I have sustained I got while not actaully doing anything out of the ordinary. It was the day after Thanksgiving (2010) and we were just running a normal work call before starting tech. I was just coming up the stairs to the stage and probably tripped or stumbled and injured my knee. I was literally floored, couldn't really move m knee.

Luckily I have a friend who is an Orthopedic Surgeon so I went to see him. Originally he thought it was a torn meniscus, but the diagnosis changed after getting an MRI. However, the whole process of diagnosis and treatment has been quite the adventure dealing with Workers Comp. It took almost four weeks to get the MRI approved. 

At least at this point I am doing better and they don't think that I need surgery. However, I have been in PT twice a week for over a month and I am only just starting to get back to full mobility of my knee. I still have some pain and I now have to re-teach myself to walk correctly since I have been compensating for so many weeks. It has been a slow and very annoying recovery process. Thankfully I have a great crew working for me that has been able to pick up the slack since there there things that I cannot do myself currently (like climb ladders).

The most important thing to remember is that even the most simple and every-day tasks can be hazardous, so pay attention to what you are doing. I have probably gone up and down those stairs thousands of times, but one misstep has taken quite a toll.


----------



## ShoelessJess

Ok, I haven't been on the boards in AWHILE, but I HAD to let you guys know about this one:
Along with theatrics I also skate roller derby. In an effort to marry the two for speedier set up, I strapped on my quads and became the girl with the clipboard at a state-wide high school competition. I had my gear on, thank god, because I came out of a turn too fast in the shop, hit sawdust and flew into the lumber racks.
Black eye, gashed chest & thigh, ripped clothes, sprained ankle. I hobbled around the rest of the day in costume-shop clothes.
I was ridiculed relentlessly at the awards ceremony, too...


----------



## Bryce

While i was building up a scaffolding from the floor i slipped off the beam i was on and fell about a metre and got collected between the legs by a diagonal beam, the fall arrest gear had another metre on the strap so that was verry painful.


----------



## chausman

Bryce said:


> ...the fall arrest gear had another metre on the strap so that was verry painful.


 Fall arrest gear. Extremely Practical...as long as you are falling more than a few meters! But it could have been useful had you then fallen off said beam and continued your painful decent. (Is that right?(decent)(pun intended)


----------



## bradleywolak

My worst injury was when we were working on a show last spring. The set consisted of flats about 15 feet high surrounding the stage. Well one of my D*uche friends starting rocking one of the flats and a drill i had left up there came down and hit me on the head. Luckily the battery was the only thing that hit me. I was out for a couple of days, but then right back to work. The Show must go on!


----------



## ruinexplorer

After reading the many injuries in this thread, I have to wonder how many of your schools or employers have set procedures for blood borne pathogens? Did you know that the three most common pathogens are Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, and HIV, none of which have cures? Do you know how to protect yourself from contracting these pathogens?


----------



## DRU

I was cutting a piece of old wood down on the table saw when something shot back at my arm, blowing it back. I only had a little prick that was bleeding on the inside of my arm, and it was a little sore, and I thought nothing of it while I cleaned up, until I noticed I couldn't bend my elbow of that arm. I decided to go to the hospital to get it looked at. They took me into the x-ray room and took two x-rays of my arm. The x-ray tech then asked me to come and look at the results. The table saw had picked up a hidden 1-1/4" brad nail in the wood and had shot it perfectly into the crux of my elbow. Three days later (because I was referred to an orthopedic surgeon) I had it removed, and now I have a lovely scar on the inside of my right elbow.

Not long afterward, my parents came to see the show and brought me a "get well" gift. It was a magnetic wand used to find nails in old wood.


----------



## mstaylor

ruinexplorer said:


> After reading the many injuries in this thread, I have to wonder how many of your schools or employers have set procedures for blood borne pathogens? Did you know that the three most common pathogens are Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, and HIV, none of which have cures? Do you know how to protect yourself from contracting these pathogens?


I don't about others but I do and have. I had a HIV possitive rigger that I had to treat before. Whenever administering first-aid I assume the worse, that way there is no problem.


----------



## tjrobb

RE: Blood borne pathogens.
We have no set rules, but Matt (my super.) and I indeed assume the worst with ANY bodily fluid. We have nitrile (medical) gloves that we keep on hand for just this, we put all contaminated materials in a double-bag, and we soak the affected area (anything that can't be tossed) with a cleaner rated to kill HIV, AIDS, and other nasties. With few exceptions, staff are asked to never handle cleanup themselves and let us (maint.) take care of it.


----------



## 65535

Worst I did was put a drywall screw into the webbing between my thumb and index on my left hand when the drilled popped the screw away from the piece.

Other than that I've had some minor crushes which resulted in pain but no lasting damage. Some cuts here or there, but nothing worth mentioning.


----------



## tales

A few wide crown staples through my finger & nail Stapled my finger to a flat once.
But the worst was working on the Joe Girardi show carrying ply-wood to the table saw & some noob jumped on the band saw I stopped so i didn't knock him into the band saw, but the ply-wood didn't & ripped my bicep tendon


----------



## jglodeklights

Hhmmm, I have a three way tie. Cracked (but not removed) a thumbnail at the cuticle when I hit something with it while hammering (was not the hammer). Dropped a mini-fridge on my ankle giving me a nice gash (was delivering them to our dorm housing during a summer festival), and getting carpal tunnel in both wrists during same festival, requiring the wearing of braces on both. 

Mine sound delightfully boring.


----------



## mstaylor

While doing the Moscow Circus preview, they had to seperate two decks to allow a cable path. It was only a couble of inches but an employee of mine stepped on the crack causing the decks to slide, it dislocated the quad from the bone.


----------



## MPowers

Back in 19#*#$ when I was in grad school, a week or so ago  I grommeted my thumb. Working very late at night, on a tight deadline, notice a thread here on safety issues???? The LD and I were making a series of one-off sculpted, shaped borders. The theatre department had acquired some commercial upholstery machines that punched the holes and then set grommets in webbing and curtains etc. The machines were mechanical/manual "trip hammer" machines. That is, you stepped on a pedal, firmly, which forced a punch or grommet setter up against a strong spring, and at the top of the travel, tripped it or released it "all at once". We were putting webbing across the top of several "teasers" made of burlap, erosion cloth and "other" added elements. Joan was aligning/assembling and punching. I was setting the grommets. My job involved placing a "high hat" (the part of a grommet that looks like an old stove pipe top hat) on the spindle, laying the punched fabric-webbing-whatever over the spindle on top of the high hat, placing a brass washer on the spindle and then stomping the treadle which brought the hammer down and set the grommet in a single blow. 

As I said, late at night, long hours working on the show, my process became .... High hat, webbing assembly, washer, stomp, High hat, webbing assembly, washer, stomp, High hat, webbing assembly, washer, stomp, High hat, webbing assembly, thumb, washer, stomp,.......... Joan.... I have a problem....! We cut a 4" semi circle out of the teaser webbing and headed to the U of I Med School Emergency center. They had problems understanding why we were working at 2 AM and why my thumb was in the machinery and why I was attached to piece of burlap with a brass grommet..... Any way, forty some years later, my thumb still has a half moon scar on it.


----------



## JCarroll

Dropped a source four bulb 3 inches onto a plastic table and it exploded sending glass into my neck, glad it didn't get in my eyes.
Stepped off the side off of a toolbox mounted on the front of a flatbed trailer, fell 4 feet landing luckily flat on my back. Jumped right up and no pain.


----------



## Dondaley

While it certainly doesn't live up to the...ahem...high standards set by some of the more experienced/actual professional members of this forum, my worst theater injury (mental damage aside) would be happened three years ago, I was pulling staples out of something (I think it was a sheet of luan or maybe a door...it's a bit fuzzy), and I managed to get my left hand with a bit of a staple, well, the next day I flew down to NOLA with my HS jazz band (I was the banjo player, not very good at then, not all that much better now) and we were playing on the steamboat Natchez, and after we finished playing our two tunes, I noticed that my hand was swelling up, not very quickly, but it was certainly getting a bit stiff...well, long story short, I'm fairly sure that it was infected from that [email protected]#% staple, cleared it up real well the next evening with some hydrogen peroxide, and I was able to play at Preservation Hall.


----------



## TassieBogan

I had 8 round 45kg tri truss base plates, that were leaning against a wall, fall on my leg when i bumped them with a road case.

broken leg, smashed ankle, 2 months compo and a 12" scar later they have a steel frame to live in.


----------



## mstaylor

My wife was helping loadout Sesame Street some years back. She was on the front of a four by four case of feeder going up the ramp. The pushers were faster than she was and they ran up the back of her leg. They thought it hung at the top of the ramp so they gave it a second hard shove. She was on crutches for a week.


----------



## Kuhlwhip

i was rushing a project in the scene shop (the worst thing to do ever) and wasn't paying attention to the table saw i was working with and ended up placing my left hand straight on the blade  

needless to say i've lost nerves in 3 fingers, ripped a quarter inch of muscle out of two of them, and grinded along to bones in my pinky and pointer finger... 

but hey they're still attached and work fine  plus i've got a hell of a story for teaching new Carps that come into my shop when talking about safety


----------



## Sony

Not the worst I've ever done, but on Thursday I tried to jump up on the front lip of stage (it was only 2 feet high) and I missed...I don't know HOW I missed but my toe slipped off and my shin rode down the edge of the front of the stage and I landed on my other knee. I've got a huge scrape on the front of my shin and my left knee was killing me for the rest of the day. It's something I do all the time but for some reason I screwed up this one time and payed the price.


----------



## ValleyTheaterKid

soooooo I was up on the weight gally at my school theater with a friend, and it was dark....very very dark. On our way down i was walking back towards the ladder down and i completely walked off the edge of the wieght gally plummeting 12 feet and 9 inches to the catwalk below......screwed up three of my fingers because my hand was slapping the ladder on the way down. my knee got cut up pretty bad cuz i landed on the steel walk....ankle was pretty shot.....and i walked it off.....thug life. lol Dont Ditch Kids. Karma strikes hard and strikes fast.


----------



## chausman

ValleyTheaterKid said:


> soooooo I was up on the weight gally at my school theater with a friend, and it was dark....very very dark. On our way down i was walking back towards the ladder down and i completely walked off the edge of the wieght gally plummeting 12 feet and 9 inches to the catwalk below......screwed up three of my fingers because my hand was slapping the ladder on the way down. my knee got cut up pretty bad cuz i landed on the steel walk....ankle was pretty shot.....and i walked it off.....thug life. lol Dont Ditch Kids. Karma strikes hard and strikes fast.


 
Seems to me that you need to get some lights up there!


----------



## Sony

chausman said:


> Seems to me that you need to get some lights up there!



Or a railing....


----------



## MarshallPope

Sony said:


> Not the worst I've ever done, but on Thursday I tried to jump up on the front lip of stage (it was only 2 feet high) and I missed...I don't know HOW I missed but my toe slipped off and my shin rode down the edge of the front of the stage and I landed on my other knee. I've got a huge scrape on the front of my shin and my left knee was killing me for the rest of the day. It's something I do all the time but for some reason I screwed up this one time and payed the price.


 
Sony's post reminded me of this: Never sit cross-legged on the edge of the stage, with your back to the house. If you do, definitely do NOT lean back to get your phone out of your pocket. You will fall off the stage. It will hurt, and there will be much laughter. How I know this, I would prefer not to say.

Ha.


----------



## Esoteric

GreyWyvern said:


> Notice Logos said it was at the end of a very long day. It was that momentary mental vacation, like ajb said. Just another example of why working long hours can be dangerous. When you are tired, you don't process things as quickly or clearly.
> 
> I've done the same thing. I was only 3-4 feet up, luckily, but it still messed up my back.



Yeah, at the end of a 96 hour summer stock work day I was putting up a fence with a pneumatic nail gun and got into a haze going through the motions and nailed by hand to a post.


----------



## Esoteric

nd925a said:


> No big accidents to speak of, but my disregard for OSHA would get me fired from a real theatre Dizzy sick in a suspended ceiling off the catwalk is always fun


 
When I was in college we did some stupid crap (with a road house ME standing, watching us). We stood on the top rung of a fully extended rolling A-Frame, we walked 5-6 feet across schedule 40 pipe to get from catwalk to catwalk instead of going around, we walked across a slanted acoustic ceiling, we walked on the hand rails of the catwalks, we used a bosuns chair with no strap or harness (by bosuns chair I mean a 2x4 with rope on both ends), and the worst, we had these trolleys that would go out to lighting positions in our black box, well the lighting positions hung about 3' below the trolley, so to get to it someone would have to hold your legs while you hung backwards and upside down from the knees up out of the trolley.

In an amusing side note, I left the theater department to pursue other endeavors. Well I had only done 2 production (slave labor) credits. Well, when I came back there was some little underclassman ME girl that told me to hang off the trolley to focus a light. She tried to taunt me into doing it, so I rolled the trolley back and told her if she wanted it focused she should get up there and do it herself.

She actually told the facility ME on me!!! We laughed at it while he pretended to dress me down for it.


----------



## Noramac

My worst injury without a doubt is when a ten foot tall wall frame that wasn't bolted down to a flat yet fell on me. I just got a little winded, no major injuries but a couple of bruises.


----------



## lchslightech

well my key to the 1st through 4th electrics was in my pocket wen 3rd electric fell 30 ft and was about 7ft from hitting the stage floor during practice for To Kill A Mockingbird good thing we were all in the house...


----------



## mstaylor

Would you care to explain what caused that little mishap?


----------



## DuckJordan

mstaylor said:


> Would you care to explain what caused that little mishap?


 
I second, What the hell happend to cause the 3rd electric to drop like that (what system do you use, counterweight? Hemp? Some other non approved system?)


----------



## gumboot

Before a performance of WSS in our school hall one evening, our teacher/TD had her iPhone running through the sound system so we could listen to music while we waited until the cast was ready to mic. Some of us were looking over her shoulder to see what was on the screen while it was in her hand, at which point she goes "This is a cool song!", her right fisted hand flys up/backwards in exclamation and smacks me square in the face. Bloody painful. But hilarious at the same time.

Otherwise I haven't really been hurt working on a show. Sometimes I'll get a little burn from touching a PAR can while focusing it cause I'll be on a ladder and it's a bit akward. But nothing serious.


----------



## danhr

I was, ironically, putting a safety cable on an instrument on our 8' high grid. I scampered up a 4 foot ladder without noticing the legs weren't locked and it collapsed under me. I would have been fine except my left (and dominant) hand landed on the foot of the ladder instead of the stage floor, bending it backwards. I got up, shook it off and continued working. The director arrived soon after and we began hanging some curtains. Every time I tried to tie a knot I yelped. He suggested I get it looked at which I did. No long term damage, but 6 weeks of physical therapy. A lot of my day job involves ladders as well, but the few times I have fallen have never been higher than 3 feet. I guess it's the false sense of security of "I'm only going up a few feet and it'll only take a second..."


----------



## Teber

It didn't happen to me, but a theatre I've worked at -- he was in the genie focusing lights (he wasn't bright enough to use the out riggers-) and leaned too far and the genie tipped, and he grabs the shakespeare and hangs there until the venues TD manages to get a ladder up there to get him, skin melted to the 750w shakespeare which had been on for probably 20 minutes. He was driven to the hospital. His wife was not happy.... Now Instead of break a leg -- we now say burn your hands -- crude -- but a cruel reminder to use the d**n outriggers.


----------



## avkid

You have to do be doing something pretty stupid to tip the lift even when not using outriggers.


----------



## JChenault

I'm looking at this thread, and it occurs to me that it has more pages than any other I have seen on this site. ( Not sure how to verify this - but I am sure that DvsDave could do a quick query ).

Not sure what to do with that fact, except to remind ourselves to work hard to be safe so that the worst injury you ever have does not end your life, leave you crippled, or send you to the hospital.

Stay safe folks


----------



## avkid

Probably the longest serious (mostly) thread.


----------



## derekleffew

JChenault said:


> I'm looking at this thread, and it occurs to me that it has more pages than any other I have seen on this site. ( Not sure how to verify this - but I am sure that DvsDave could do a quick query ). ...


While viewing the thread listing of any particular forum, click on the Replies/Views column title (or almost any other title) in the header to sort the list. The white triangle pointing down is descending order; up is ascending order.

Our longest thread is appropriately (people love to show off), http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/...hought-we-could-share-pictures-our-shows.html with currently 1,140 replies and 660,496 views in almost seven years. 
You are correct that this is the longest thread in the Safety forum. Personally, I feel the thread should have ended with post#55.


----------



## mstaylor

The length of this thread simply shows how dangerous our chosen profession is. I am constantly on my guys about paying attention and to not horse around. I have younger guys that want to wear ear buds while they work. I will not allow it, I will send them home if I catch them with them in. I want them to answer me when I want something and get out of the way when a danger warning goes out. That can not happen if they have buds in their ears. I had a very good hand that went from the A list to the C list because he kept wanting to break the rule.


----------



## avkid

Wow, that's a new one.
Occasional phone calls are bad enough, but that's crazy.


----------



## mstaylor

avkid said:


> Wow, that's a new one.
> Occasional phone calls are bad enough, but that's crazy.


 
I work in an arena setting so rigging happens at the same time as trusses being bolted and sound getting assembled. The last thing I want is a guy hurt because he couldn't hear me tell him to move. 
That's the safety side of it. I personally think it is rude to the show guy and to fellow crew members to not be connected to the task. I know when I am the show guy, or even just running local guys, I do not want to have to walk ten steps to tap a guy on the shoulder to get his attention.


----------



## shiben

mstaylor said:


> I work in an arena setting so rigging happens at the same time as trusses being bolted and sound getting assembled. The last thing I want is a guy hurt because he couldn't hear me tell him to move.
> That's the safety side of it. I personally think it is rude to the show guy and to fellow crew members to not be connected to the task. I know when I am the show guy, or even just running local guys, I do not want to have to walk ten steps to tap a guy on the shoulder to get his attention.


 
I have never understood wanting to wear earbuds... On most shows I work on either fun discussion of some oddball thing the Systems Tech came across in your town or straight up rapid-fire instructions are going on, and if your just hooking truss together, there is usually another guy... Plus that means your iPod is now on your person, which means its more likely to get broken or dropped.


----------



## avkid

shiben said:


> I have never understood wanting to wear earbuds... On most shows I work on either fun discussion of some oddball thing the Systems Tech came across in your town.


 Like when the promoter booked the out of town IATSE hands in a rather "flamboyant" local hotel.


----------



## teqniqal

onal Although some injuries can be shrugged-off as a learning experience, many cannot - they result in career ending disabilities or worse. Learn how to see potential hazards and then avoid them. Going home at the end of the show is more important that getting the show done. Play Safe!


----------



## emoreth

Worst so far: Concussion due to giant steel roof beams crossing the catwalk at waist height and a lack of helmets (none in the building at the time as far as I know). There is now a box of appropriate headgear in the access room and a sign warning people not to go up without putting some on.


----------



## lightingtek

I am a high school technical director, and I must say that this is a very informative thread, one that I will be sharing with my students when class starts in less than an hour.

That being said, I've left school for the ER three times, twice in an ambulance. The first two (both with the flashing lights) were due to my back going out and locking up so bad I couldn't walk or even sit up to ride in a car. Both of those were a week after our all school musical which I had been working 12-16 hour days on to get the set done in time, and my hip had gotten out of alignment and just finally locked up, wouldn't work any more. Neither time was I lifting anything heavy, or even wrong, in fact the first time I merely bent over to walk under a platform.

The third trip to the ER my wife happened to have stuck around after a show to help strike, (most likely because she was hungry and wanted to go out to eat afterward) which was a rare occurrence, and I'm grateful that she did. About half an hour into strike, after one of my students finished using a 10 foot ladder to clip some light duty hanging wires, I went to move the ladder to my next task and suddenly felt searing pain in my face and dropped the ladder yelling "G*D [email protected]!T (name of student), WHAT THE H3LL DID YOU LEAVE ON TOP OF THE LADDER!?!?!?". Surprisingly all work stopped immediately (you can yell "HOLD THE WORK" as many times as you like, and the drills keep moving, but yell one profanity, and everyone stops cold) as everyone turned to see me clapping my hand over my left eye and blood gushing out from between my fingers. My wife ran up to the stage to help me off of the platform I was on (about 57" high... yes, the 10' ladder was on top of a 57" platform), just praying that I didn't remove my hand from my eye while all of my students (one of them a 4th grader... it was "Frankenstein" and he was playing the younger brother) and a lot of their parents were watching, because she just KNEW that my eye was gone. Luckily the 8 INCH DIAGONAL WIRE CUTTERS only caught me in the eyebrow, and then bounced and hit be twice in the nose. Nearly broke my nose, caused lots of blood, but no permanent injury. Facial scars are [email protected] @S$, right? At least my wife thinks so.

Ironically, this is the show that I posted a question about in the rigging thread last fall asking how one goes about rigging a trap door for a hanging (with noose) effect. Also the same show we hired a professional rigging company to fly a platform with an actor 14' into the air. No injuries, or accidental hangings occurred during the course of the show or its construction, just one major one at strike.

On another side note, our all school musical closed this past weekend, and I have already been to the chiropractor to make sure everything is aligned to avoid that next trip to the ER.


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## Nelson

Yeah, I've had a few close calls with things that I, stupidly, left on top of a ladder. Thankfully I learned my lesson without injury. Close calls were close enough!


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## sww1235

Man this is a scary thread. Luckily I haven't been seriously injured in a theatre, b/c I am paranoid about safety. Hell I was the only one wearing safety glasses and hearing protection while operating the table saw or router.


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## peacefulone61

I fell 20 feet of the top of an A frame extension ladder, rehanging a show in college. A stage manager came in and must not have seen me on stage and started to close the curtains the next thing i know I hit the ground landing on my wrist and shattered it 46 micro factures if i remember correctly. I took out part of the set, but put it back together before I had it checked out.


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## EBB

Not the worst. But certainly the most fun I've had injuring myself.. Snapped my wrist and pulled my sprained my ankle when I decided to tarzan my stupid self down from the pin rail. Worth the glory of my peers? meh... I'll say yes since I was stupid back then.


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## Roger L. Lattin

I don't know if it was the worst injury I have had but left some interesting scars. 
I was working on "Circus of The Stars" where they teach "actors" how to be circus performers, I got friendly with the lions and tigers' training staff. We were on a long break, when the tiger trainer asked me to sit down and hold a 5 week old baby tiger cub while they rehearsed with mom and 8-10 other big cats. So, I sat down on a chair near the cage (but not too near!!!) so mom could see her cub while working. Things were going well for a half hour or so, 20-25 lbs. of young kitten playing, purring, trying to nurse off my thumb and looking very closely at each other. Mom came by several times to check on her cub but the way she'd looked at me let me know where I was on the food chain! 
The cub was laying down in my lap sleeping when mom came by and made this weird grunting sound. The cub made a big mewing sound and sank ALL twenty of it's claws into my thighs, I didn't jump (mom and the trainer were right there inside the performance cage) I maintained my sitting position the cub started to purr again. I held it for another 15-20 minuets enjoying each other's attention. 
When I went to the bathroom later my legs were covered in blood to the point my socks were stuck to my legs and several of the puncture wounds were still bleeding. I cleaned off my legs went back to work, climbed up to the 40-50 ft. spot tower for another act finishing the 14 hour day with out further incident. I have 6-8 little scars in each thigh from one of my best days in the industry!


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## techieman33

We were loading in a small theater show last year, some little company with just a couple of crew that had very little experience on the road. So we're unloading the truck with a hydraulic lift gate a piece or two at a time. The road guy with the truck brings down an upright piano shell (it was almost all there and crazy heavy). The problem was everyone else was taking stuff inside and it was only the 2 of us at the truck. So the lift gets to the ground and I start to turn the piano around so it comes off long ways and we don't risk tipping it over. Well the road guy had other ideas and just started shoving it straight off. Of course the piano fell over and landed on my toes. Ended up breaking both big toes. It was about 3 weeks before I could really walk around enough to work at all, and 3 to 4 months before I really felt confident that I could do stuff without worry about hurting them again. I always wear my steel toes now for in's and out's. Even on the "small shows."


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## NewChris

At my high school a few years ago, someone fell through a drop-in ceiling, trying to get to the auditorium ceiling. After she fell, she had a seizure and an ambulance was called and she was brought to the hospital. She was fine, but very scary.


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## MPowers

The dropped ceiling reminds me of a moment in my mis spent youth. At my undergrad school in the early 60's, the drama dept. gave out awards at the end of each year. One of them was the "Golden Screw" award. A gold painted old style stage screw on a stained and varnished plaque. It was awarded for the funniest or most memorable or most "I can't believe I did that" moment of the year. My sophomore year I won for "Missing". A new faculty member was trying to impress the world with his first production at his new school. Although we later grew to admire and love him, at this point he was really rubbing people the wrong way. Very late one night at a dress rehearsal that should have ended hours earlier, he decided that though the timing was perfect, we had to repeat the scene. That meant, while the rest of the cast and crew waited, I had to climb up above the dropped ceiling in the converted gym that was the theatre at the time, across the length of the building, on wood planks lain on the joists, reset the single feather to drop ( Man For All Seasons the cardinal Woolsey scene). On my way back I slipped on one of the loose planks and my foot and leg went through the ceiling, knocking out a panel that landed just inches from the faculty member in question. I got the screw up award because I missed him.


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## MarshallPope

Well, go figure. We do "Golden Screw" awards here as well. Ours are low budget, though - just a 3" gold-painted wood screw screwed into a chunk of 2x4. Ours are the same concept, though. Every year the student leadership comes up with 5 or so categories to award embarassing moments or whatnot. Luckily, I never had occasion to receive one as a student, and I've avoided them so far as staff, knock on wood.


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## zmb

Roger L. Lattin said:


> The cub was laying down in my lap sleeping when mom came by and made this weird grunting sound. The cub made a big mewing sound and sank ALL twenty of it's claws into my thighs, I didn't jump (mom and the trainer were right there inside the performance cage) I maintained my sitting position the cub started to purr again. I held it for another 15-20 minuets enjoying each other's attention.
> When I went to the bathroom later my legs were covered in blood to the point my socks were stuck to my legs and several of the puncture wounds were still bleeding. I cleaned off my legs went back to work, climbed up to the 40-50 ft. spot tower for another act finishing the 14 hour day with out further incident. I have 6-8 little scars in each thigh from one of my best days in the industry!



This, by far, has to the injury with the best story behind it.


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## TheaterEd

zmb said:


> This, by far, has to the injury with the best story behind it.


I would agree. In the theater and in the shop are where I am the most safe, so the best I have are smashing my head into things, and putting holes in my fingers due to overly-enthusiastic power drilling. I would say my most spectacular fall came when I was acting. I was to jump onto a table and slide over it landing in a chair. It worked perfectly every time, but during our second show someone put a book in the wrong spot on the table. When I slid on the book I was going to fast and flipped backwards with my chair as the lights went out. Myself and chair went over the edge of the stage for a 6' drop to the gym floor..... I landed on my feet still holding the chair and booked it backstage during the blackout, could have been much worse if I wasn't a cat in a past life.


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## StradivariusBone

MPowers said:


> One of them was the "Golden Screw" award. A gold painted old style stage screw on a stained and varnished plaque. It was awarded for the funniest or most memorable or most "I can't believe I did that" moment of the year.



I like that a lot. We've taken to giving a "Thank You" card to the tech member that did something stupid (or something the rest of the crew presumed to be stupid) during a show and on the inside we write "for ruining the show." We usually try to find the most frilly, pink-covered, butterfly-filled Grandma card possible and have the whole crew sign it.


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## MichaelPHS

Worst injury.... probably back in college, setting up the lighting area (had just a multi-purpose dance studio) by putting a table out to set up the lighting console. I hadn't put the table down fully, resting it on my foot (in dance shoes at the time as Iwas in th show as well as tech) so I could get a better grip, when some lazy sod (onlysmall but still enough to hurt) decides to come sit on the table. Popped the nail out from my big toe under the skin but it was still attatched by the tip, even the nurse was squeamish about this one so I got my pliers and had to rip it offjust to get a bandage on it to stop the bleeding. I've also had someone during a focusing session put the wrong lantern up and damn near blind me. Worst accident I've seen though, 2 actors swingng a thrid around the floor in a paint suit (workmans onsies I call 'em) during a break time slowly but surely getting closer to the legs of the rostra each spin. Sure enough she twats her head on the leg, goes to hospital with a concussion and still to this day makes jokes about the dent in her head


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## flash1322

Updated worst injury, I was working in a cove in our Proscenium theatre here at WMU. Its about 15' the air and I'm about 6'6" so my head was a good 20' from the ground, I went up to replace a gel that the lighting designer wanted changed and I took one step too many. Next thing I remember was waking up at the hospital and people asking if I knew who I was. I was out for about 6 hours, I had a serious concussion and a separation in my shoulder, ended up being in intensive care for about 4 days till they released me. Since the accident they put in harnesses in the coves, people complain that they have to wear them but its better then getting hurt.


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## StradivariusBone

flash1322 said:


> Updated worst injury, I was working in a cove in our Proscenium theatre here at WMU. Its about 15' the air and I'm about 6'6" so my head was a good 20' from the ground, I went up to replace a gel that the lighting designer wanted changed and I took one step too many. Next thing I remember was waking up at the hospital and people asking if I knew who I was. I was out for about 6 hours, I had a serious concussion and a separation in my shoulder, ended up being in intensive care for about 4 days till they released me. Since the accident they put in harnesses in the coves, people complain that they have to wear them but its better then getting hurt.



Holy crap! Glad you're here to post about it!


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## ruinexplorer

I hope that they are evaluating the fall risks throughout the theater, not just the coves.


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## flash1322

I forgot to note that this was my 1st year here, its been 3 years since and the conditions are still sketchy in areas.


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## ChristopherRobinJ

So far worst injury I have had, has to be the hole saw incident, I had never used one before, My scenic direct handed me a drill motor with a 3" Hole Saw bit on it ans told me to drill some holes in a hollywood flat (to fit some magic door opening sticks through) and after successfully drilling the hole, Random techie behind me yells my name. I twisted around quickly and unfortunately kept the drill running. it met my left thumb, then skipped down cutting a large gash along the hand. It took me a second to realize what happened. 1/2 of my thumbnail came off, and there was a 2" long gash along my hand. Scenic designer was on hand to help clean it up and bandage it. It was the worst injury in the class that year, followed up by a guy stapling his thumb to his leg with a staple gun...


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## MarshallPope

I had a hole saw bite me once. It shredded the skin on one finger. It's my favorite scar that I have, though, so I guess some sort of a positive came out of it...


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## ChristopherRobinJ

Here is a pic of my scar, still pretty apparent after a year..


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## kevinatblinn

Band saw. Working too quickly. Stupid. Pushed a finger straight into the blade. Clean cut, into the finger, into the fingernail. Ten stitches or so. Stopped me from playing the guitar for two months or so, but it healed well. If it had been a cross-cut on the finger, I would be a stubby now.


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## Fountain Of Euph

Was hanging some choir mics on the grid senior year of high school. Was taking to my spotter below and plowed my head into a I beam. Apparently I loss consciousness, because I woke up laying on the grid. Ended up with a concussion. To this day I still do not know how I didn't fall through the grid, or how I managed to climb down after. 


Sent from Taptalk for Android, this was.


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## Britlite

Thanks for all the good stories....Seems like those Makitas have a lot of intimate relationships with people..lol
Thankfully, not a lot of injuries due to my agility and balance.
But on an installation about ten years ago I cut my hand open due to a faulty multitool. So know I only get the best multi tools available.
This was at the beginning of the day so I ran to the bathroom got some paper towels and gave the hell out of my hand.....
Stage hand bandaid


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## bobgaggle

Just had a new one. I was welding up a gangly tree branch out of 3/8" rod. Finished my weld and picked up the branch to reposition it. Got the balance wrong, branch shifted and my still red hot weld landed on my arm. Got a 3" second degree and about an inch of char above that

edit: no I wasn't wearing my leather cause its about 105 degrees in the shop right now.


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## peacefulone61

My Worst injury happened while working on an extension A frame ladder in college Hanging a light, about 15' off the floor, The extension part of the ladder cracked I shifted my weight and over compensated fell to the floor Landing entirely on my wrist and pulverized it. over 60 micro fractures. I still feel it every now an then 20 years later.


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