Friday, December 02, 2016
Sonlit director Maurice Attard jailed for 10 months over accident that left teen Vlada Krevchenko confined to wheelchair
www.maltatoday.com.mt: A company director has been sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment after a court declared him responsible for the 2008 collapse of a lighting scaffold which left a young partygoer paralysed from the waist down.
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6 comments:
How terrible! I always tell my dad about theatrical accidents that occur that I witness, cause, or hear about. From overhead electrics, the counter weight rigging system, the equipment in the scene shop, the general haste of load ins, and, at least in some cases, the untrained labor we ask to control all of it I’m surprised we don’t have a lot more articles like this. To be clear I don’t mean this in regarding to CMU specifically, because even in a lot of the smaller cities the labor yo get from unions really shouldn’t be trusted to do a lot of the stuff we have them do. My dad asks all the time how there aren’t more fatal accidents in the theatre. I guess it means that in most cases there are enough checks and balances that we catch the mistakes. I am terribly sorry that this woman was failed, so much so that at 17 she has been made wheel chair bound. I think this is a real wake up call. We aren’t doctor’s but for a lot of things we put peoples lives in our hands, and maybe we should slow down and recognize that.
It is crazy to think that you can go to a party to have a good time and then your life is completely changed forever. No one ever expects that they are going to be hit by a collapsing lighting truss. That is horrible that that girl is now in a wheelchair because of a spinal cord injury. The company should have been more cautious when they were hanging the truss outside especially if they noticed it was windy out. It is definitely their fault and I am glad that they are receiving the consequences even though 10 months in jail is nothing compared to a spinal cord injury and spending your whole life in a wheelchair. The structure only lasted 3 hours, which is not a long time for a truss to be up. It is a little sad that it has been 8 years since this happened and they are finally paying the consequences now.
It scares me to think about how often safety precautions are thrown away in this industry. It’s something we see every day here in the School of Drama, and theoretically we are supposed to be the industry leaders. I don’t even want to begin to think about the number of people in the entertainment profession who aren’t even trained or educated on safety. I’m not really surprised to hear about events like this one, though I really wish I was. You would figure that in this day and age, there would be enough regulations in place to prevent incidents like this one. I’m interested to hear exactly why the blame was all placed on one person though. Often safety oversights don’t just happen because of one person. It’s everyone’s responsibility to check for or report safety concerns. I’m also curious as to what exactly the oversight was. Could they tie it to one specific factor? Or was it a combination of small issues?
I agree with Sam that it's really frustrating that it's taken eight years for people to have to answer for this. Without increased accountability we will most likely not see any drastic changes in people's actions. Safety is something that I think we don't talk about nearly enough both in the industry and here at Carnegie Mellon. There have been more than a few times that I've been asked to do something or witnessed someone else do that's unsafe while I've been here. We need to establish a work environment where safety is not only encouraged, but mandatory. Sometimes I think that everyone needs to take a step back and really examine what they're doing. No matter what's happening keeping people safe is always more important than the show. The danger comes when people lose sight of this and put themselves and others at risk of possible injury or even death.
While it is great that the company is being held responsible for this I do have questions about it. Mainly about who is being punished. The article just says “a director” that doesn’t tell me much. Is this director the person who was in charge of the install 8 years ago, when this accident happened? Or is it just whoever happens to be in charge of the company now? Or even worse, is this just some random company executive they’ve brought out to be punished while the person responsible slips by? Also, is the company having to compensate Vlada Kravchenko in anyway? I would hope they are but I also would have hopped that a case as seeming clear cut as this would not take 8 years (seriously? How did this take that long) to have come to a conclusion so who knows maybe the company will be able to weasel its way out of that
It amazes me that this took so long to reach a resolution; it has almost been a full decade since this tragic accident. More startling though is how short the sentence for the man found responsible. This was also seen in the long and protracted aftermath of the 'Midnight Rider' train death. While this accident did not result in a fatality, the result was life-altering injury, and should be recognized for its magnitude. It is incredible that the men leading and directing the events that led to these accidents seem to get away rather lightly, even after being determined to be "responsible". I think liability in situations like this should be more clearly defined, to better avoid long boughts of finger pointing that invariably follow an accident. A clearer system of marking hierarchy and explicit responsibilities, though difficult to achieve, may well be worth the time investment when the next tragedy comes.
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