Cue To Cue | Living behind the scenes... » safety: This is just a quick list of injuries and deaths to stagehands found from a simple Google search. It is only of incidents that arguably could have been prevented by the victims themselves, and does not include accidents such as stage collapses or incidents of mechanical failure.
Notice how nearly every one of these accidents were fall-related? Pay attention, don’t cut corners, use the lift legs correctly, and wear AND clip-in your harness. You can’t run a show from a hospital bed, and no show is worth dying for.
Think you’re too good to be hurt? It took more time for you to read this post than it did for all 20 of the accidents above to occur. Heck, it took longer for me to write this sentence.
4 comments:
It's not too hard to fall of a ladder, loading bridge, or catwalk, so being aware of your surroundings and using the proper safely precautions will help prevent future accidents. Many of these reports presented in the article where user error where the individual was using little to no safety devices resulting in injury or death. In some situations a safely device is not accessible or applicable to the hardware being used. A ladder is a piece of equipment where its difficult to use additional safety equipment to protect your safety. In this situations and situations similar to a ladder, the user needs to be confident in the task they are about to perform or seek assistance from others. Making good judgement is critical for avoiding error. In situations where a safety harness or another alternative device can be used, the user should always take advantage of the equipment because its there for a reason. In the Philip Chosky theatre, we have safety harnesses for loading weights for a reason and all users should comply by the rules for their own safety. Many injuries and deaths can be prevented in this industry, we just need to become a tad more aware and use our resources for the good.
On our first day of 30 Hour OSHA Class, the instructor discussed how the most common cause of accidents on Carnegie Mellon's campus is falls. This list indicates a similar trend. It is definitely understandable that falls cause the most common instances of injuries or deaths in the theatre industry. While there may not be many precautions one can take while on a ladder, it is important for everyone in the theatre to know about ladder safety and use caution not only as someone use the ladder directly, but also as someone in the same room as someone else who is using a ladder. The more serious injuries on this list seem to have resulted from much higher falls, mostly during load ins or load outs. This list really shows how significant it is to take safety seriously in the theatre. Many times, theatre technicians and stagehands may do something not so safe "for the good of the show," but as this article says, "you can't run a show from a hospital bed."
Falling off of the top of a tall ladder doesn't seem like something that would fall under the category of dangerous and hazardous actions that we regularly undertake in the theater, and by extension; we dont take precautions for falling off ladders. Where is the line between what a skilled person can do without needed extra precautions, but a less experienced person would need them for, and actions that everyone should take the same precautions in.
I found the article to be an interesting concept as an example of why you should follow safety rules and what could happen if you don't. I know it sounds kind of weird to say, but I wish that the page had a bit more variety. I felt that most of the articles were basically saying that you should be clip in and that they were all about falls. Yeah, that's important and it is where a lot of injuries in this industry occur, but at the same time I feel like it would also have been helpful to see other examples of injuries in order to see how those could be prevented. Reading a lot of the linked articles, I have to say that the most ridiculous thing that I read was that a stagehand was pushed offstage by a touring crew member.
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