I get a little tired of posting this story but it seems I need to post it again as it is a good example of the potential consequences of failing to follow proper
safety procedures.
September 1st. of 2000. I was 25 years old. I was striking lights from the Irvine Bowl, the
amphitheatre that houses the
Pageant of the Masters. I cut a few corners on
safety. I had been in the industry eleven years at this
point and never had any kind of serious accident. My first
safety cut was that I was not wearing a climbing harness, so I had nothing to catch me if I fell. My second cut was that I was carrying my lights down the
truss rather than lowering them with a rope. Third, I was in a hurry to finish. As a matter of fact the only
safety procedure that I did follow that night was that I wasn't working alone. I had someone else with me acting as a bottom man while I did the climbing, which makes the failure to use a rope that much more idiotic. But even there, I had violated this rule on any number of occasions in my previous eleven years in the industry.
I was in the process of carrying my last light down the
truss and I was anxious to finish the job and get to the crew party. I was nearly half way down the
truss when I missed my
grip. I'm not sure exactly how far I fell, but it was somewhere between ten and fifteen feet. The way the fall started I really should have hit the
ground head first. I've never been sure exactly how I managed to straighten myself out so that I hit the concrete steps feet first instead.
In short, I got lucky. That fall should have killed me. As it stands, I injured both of my knees and pinched a nerve in my back. The pinched nerve went undiagnosed for four years; four years in which I was in near constant pain. There again, it was pure
blind luck that lead to discovering the pinched nerve. Nearly four years after my fall, I somehow managed to un-pinch it. While the pain is no longer a constant in my life, it's still a frequent visitor. I'm in the gym 3 to 5 days a week dealing with pain issues and take anti-inflamatories far more often than I'd like. Nine years later I'm still doing the same job I did then, but now I have learned to use the proper
PPE for this and other aspects of my job and to follow proper procedures.
I'm lucky that I walked away from that fall with a lifetime of knee problems when I really should have died. This wasn't the only time that luck has saved me from serious injury or death, but you can't depend on luck. Luck will only take you so far, then it'll get you killed. Learn from my mistakes; don't make them yourself. Learn and follow proper
safety procedures. Learn to use the proper
PPE for a given activity, then use it properly.
I'm 35 years old now and I know I don't
bounce as well as I did at 25, yet if I were to have the same accident now, I would come out of it in a lot better shape. Why? Because I no longer trust that because I've never had an accident doing something a certain way, that I never will. I learn and follow that proper
safety procedures. If someone points out something I'm doing that they think is unsafe, I listen to them. They just may be right. I will not take the risks that I took in my younger days. I'm twenty years into my career and hope to live through the next twenty years.
There are a lot of people in my life who I care about and who care about me: my parents, my sisters, my brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, friends, co-workers, my girlfriend and her kids. I will not hurt them by doing something stupid that gets me killed if there's any way I can avoid it. You're not the only person at risk when you skimp on
safety. You risk hurting not only yourself and the people you work with, but everyone in your life who cares about you at all. Think about that when you decide to cut corners on
safety.