Your worst theatre injury

[cdub260]

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.

 

[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]

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)

 

[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]

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]

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...

 

[jwl868]

.....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

 

[Van]

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.

 

[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

 

[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

 

[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.

 

[rochem]

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.

 

[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!

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[Darthrob13]

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

 

[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.

 

[cdub260]

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.