www.ohio.edu: Students currently in rotation at the SHAPe Clinic, part of the School of Health Sciences and Wellness, performed extrication drills in the lighting grid of The Forum Theater, recently.
Dr. Jeff Russell led teams of undergraduate and graduate students in the simulation of safe and effective removal of injured bodies from the complex environment of a lighting grid, a maze-like structure of steel platforms, lighting equipment and power cables hanging high above the theater stage.
3 comments:
This is such a great collaboration between health and safety and the arts. In my experience in public high school, no less, if you weren’t an athlete the trainer hired by the school didn’t care at all to take care of you or help you with your injuries – even if they occurred in an athletic related environment like gym class. The worse part is that when Frisbee was a club sport, they wouldn’t even look at Frisbee injuries because even though the sport is as intense or even more so than soccer, it still wasn’t a “sport”. Seeing the arts and athletic departments working together in “This clinic, started in 2013” is an amazing thing to see after all my negative experiences with the athletic departments. Even at CMU, the EMS people only really know where the scene shop and where the freshman studio is – god forbid anything ever happens in our tension grid or steel grid, because they would be vastly unprepared.
I think this is fantastic. I know that many theaters are now being built with increased safety measures like built in fall arrest systems and theaters being upgraded or renovated are having fall arrest systems put in. Fall arrest systems are great. Even if there is no need for one, it makes the operator feel more secure. Most people don’t talk about extraction and retrieval should someone fall and the fall arrest system enacted. In fact, I don’t recall hearing a rescue plan for our fall arrest system in the Chosky. It is incredibly dangerous to leave someone hanging in a harness. Blood flow starts to be cut off in a mater of minutes, not to mention the fact that the injured may also hit something on the way down. That being said, what happens if someone has a heart attack or falls in the tension grid or the steel grid? Even if EMTs were on site it could still take a dangerous amount of time to get to the person, especially if the EMTs don’t have any knowledge or understanding of how these things operate. I would very much like to see something like this implemented at CMU.
It wasn’t until this week when I was up in the steel grid that I noticed how complex and dangerous some things in a theatre space can be. While I was up in the steel grid I tried to use a piece of aircraft cable to get my balance. Little did I know that this piece of aircraft cable could have let the entire fire curtain plummet to the stage floor? This is only one example of how many elements of a theatre space can be dangerous if one does not know how to use them properly. . I think that the collaboration between health sciences and the arts is a great thing and can really benefit everyone that is part of the production to educate them on safety. This should be training that everyone takes part in and I hope that I will continue to learn about useful safety precautions in the theatre world. I hope that the work Dr. Russell’s team is doing inspires other universities and organizations to take the time to do similar simulations.
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