Your worst theatre injury

[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.

 

[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"

 

[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

 

[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...)

 

[Wolf]

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???

 

[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!

 

[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.

 

[kiwitechgirl]

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?

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[mstaylor]

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

 

[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".

 

[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

 

[rwhealey]

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.

 

[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?

 

[Drewdesign]

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

 

[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...

 

[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.

 

[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)

 

[zuixro]

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.