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Your worst theatre injury
- Thread starterTechiegirly
- Start date
Eboy87
Well-Known Member
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.
I now wear gloves on the ins and outs.
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.
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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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!!!
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.
Grimtheatre
Member
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!
But did you save the piece, or was your sacrifice in vain?
CynicWhisper
Member
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.
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...
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...
Hughesie
Well-Known Member
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...
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"?
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! 
I've found that doing anything barehanded with lit or recently-lit lights can have bad consequences...
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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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.
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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