WalesOnline: "MAGISTRATES hit out at a council today for a potentially lethal safety blunder which resulted in a teacher plunging 9ft down an open lift shaft.
Drama teacher Gareth Williams suffered a shatter fracture to his right eye socket, an orbital fracture to the eye and fractured bones in his arm.
As a result of his injuries, he was off work for six months and is awaiting an operation to rectify problems with his arm."
8 comments:
This lift sounds like a permanently installed machine. I wonder what the repercussions would be like had it been a one off 4 weekend play.
He said despite a requirement to inspect the lift every six months it had not been inspected at least since October 2004.
It sounds like a key safety system, the barriers, where overridden... which isn't that surprising or uncommon for some reason in the theatre.
Maybe I'm stupid but i don't understand how the lift has really anything to do with it. The majority of the story is about the lift yet it has very little to do with the fall. Was the lift up when the actor stepped on it and then it fell once he put his weight on it? The article doesn't really say. If the lift was just down then him especially as the Stage Manager should have asked the carpenters to put caution tape around it or something. Also if there is a huge hole in the floor I'm sure as SM he knew this was going to be there and probably saw it prior to falling into it so why was he walking backwards on the stage in the first place where potentially there could be a huge gaping hole. All of this is assuming that the lift was down though.
Actually you don't ever leave a lift hole open for any reason except of course for a performance. Even then only as long as required by the show. A lift as silly as it sounds can easily kill. The Santa Fe Opera in the 80's had a death via fall down a lift. In that case, people were tired and didn't notice the hole and next thing you know you have a dead person on your hands. Same thing with traps and orchestra lifts. I'm guessing due to the requirement of the lifts gates that it was an orchestra lift and probably not something you would use in a show.
It's too bad they only realized that safety features are there for their safety only after someone was injured. Like Dave, I'm not surprised that a theatre defeated its safety features, it happens all the time (Genie without outriggers, anyone?). There should never be an open hole on stage without any sort of safety precautions because you never know who's going to be wandering around. Too often it takes an accident to realize this.
Unfortunatly, as history seems to have proved, alot of people don't worry about safety regulations until it's too late. This is a perfect example of this. While it takes a bit of time to caution tape out a pit or inspect a lift it is certainly worth it in the long run. I am sure everyone at that theatre would say that the loss of personnel and money was in no way worth what it would have taken to prevent this from occuring.
I think the most entertaining part of this article is that the organization responsible for safety, were the ones not following the safety rules they enforce and fine for. It just proves, no matter how much you know about safety you are still at risk.
These people are idiots. How can you just LEAVE A HOLE in a stage? I don't get it. I get that accidents happen. I get that our jobs our dangerous, what I don't get is why someone didn't just put up a couple of cones or something.
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