New Poll - OUCH!
Sat, 31 May 2003, 07:41 pmcrgwllms29 posts in thread
New Poll - OUCH!
Sat, 31 May 2003, 07:41 pmSelf explanatory, really - who's ever hurt themselves, what was involved, & whose fault was it?
The Poll-tergeist
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The Poll-tergeist
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Re: How have I hurt myself? Let me count the ways....
Wed, 4 June 2003, 09:31 pmWell okay, now I'll add some of mine to the list...have you got a few hours to spare..?!!
Potentially most dangerous... I was in a show operating a small puppet dressed in the same costume as me, representing my character. The puppet was to be swooped by a giant bird, played by an actor with a hat with a pointed beak made of bamboo. In the course of the swoop, the tip of the beak hit me in the eye! Luckily I reeled in the right direction, and the brunt of the impact stabbed me just inside the eye, on the bridge of my nose. I was just about to exit anyway, and I spun off to the dressing room to check the damage in the mirror, and make certain could still actually see. I was onstage again in a few seconds, and did the rest of the show with one eye closed and weeping. Had to improvise some choreography where I was supposed to throw & catch an object, because I lost all depth perception.
During the break between shows, sought a doctor who applied medication and an eye patch (the bamboo point had scratched the surface of my eyeball). For the afternoon matinee I put an eyepatch on the puppet, so that everyone would think that's how my character was supposed to look.
Same show, a few days later....still wearing the eyepatch; backstage at the subiaco studio (very small space behind the set), bent down to pick up a prop and then standing and turning in a hurry (on my blind side) I smashed my head into a concrete pillar. Woke up a few seconds later, not enough to miss my cue but enough to not remember hitting the floor.
The show I toured the most, Dolphin Talk, involved a lot of acrobatic tumbling to represent being a dolphin. During a particularly gruelling week in Victoria, I didn't quite catch myself as I dived headfirst toward the floor and I clipped my chin hard on the ground. I could see the other actors' concern as they saw blood running from my chin, but I nodded that I was okay to continue. One of them passed me a handkerchief, which I used to staunch the blood any chance I could when I wasn't directly active in the scene. The scene at the time was about Monkey Mia, and the actor playing the Ranger casually informed the audience "not to worry about that Dolphin that's cut himself, he probably got too close to some sharp coral". During a later scene when I was slowly climbing on a frame and turning upside down, every time I faced downwards I could see the growing patch of blood where I was slowly dripping on the floor. After the show I found a doctor, who gave me four stitches in my chin..still have the scar.
Opening night of "A View From The Bridge" at the Subiaco Theatre Centre; my character is being taught to box, and the other guy pulls a swift one and decks me. Because of the nature of the space, how the audience surrounds you and can see everything, we rehearsed a contact punch, where he swung with a fist but at the last minute opened to a slap that I took and then he closed his fist in the follow-through. We'd timed this really well so it looked great and I was taking hardly any force. But in the excitement of opening night he forgot and kept a closed fist...and he was a BIG guy (remember Bob Faggeter?) I went flying, one of the actors caught me, and I was momentarily REALLY stunned. Aarne Neeme (the director) gave me a note later, reminding me that I'd messed up the lines just afterwards. I had to explain that I was actually lucky I could speak (or stand) at all!
Filming a training documentary for BP oil workers...part of the story was telling how vandals had broken into an area and stolen fuel. It wasn't originally a scene on the shotlist but I suggested I'd be able to climb over this high barbed-wire fence, and if we filmed it in silhouette I wouldn't be recognised as my other character...all fine until one take when I happened to puncture my thumb on a rusty barb. Didn't occur to me to do anything about it, I just sucked on the cut and kept doing the stunt. Wasn't until a few days later that my jaw muscles became painfully tight and I discovered I'd given myself a mild dose of tetanus.
At a festival in Korea, the performance involved use of scuba gear in an underwater display tank. I was very conscious of the safety aspects of the gear (I used to be a divemaster) and to ensure that our flight schedule was sufficiently delayed after the last performance to prevent any possibility of decompression illness (bends). But because of the humid conditions and the dirt we kept walking into the tank, I got a pretty bad ear infection, which was exacerbated by the the pressure changes during the flight home...absolute agony coming in to land, and a partial loss of hearing that took a long while to recover.
During a rehearsal...a clowning type routine where five of us would pile one on top of the other on the ground. Part way through rehearsal it was decided that we needed one of the five to be somewhere else so he was taken from that part of the routine. Unfortunately we didn't quite think through how this would alter our alignment, and one of the guys above me had his head directly above mine as I happened to throw my head back. I heard the sickening sound through my own skull, of hitting his jaw and the cracking of teeth! Turns out I actually had broken three teeth but thank God we discovered he wore dentures, so they were plastic and could be replaced. Had a good lump on my head though!
Biggest legal battle over an injury was actually due to a vehicle accident while travelling between venues. I sustained some soft tissue damage to my foot, couldn't stand on it for a while and needed physiotherapy and a podiatrist. Because the other driver was proved negligent, and because I could support a case showing that this injury was potentially damaging my established reputation, livelihood, and future earning potential, I eventually (over a year later!) received a lump sum compensation payment from the insurance company. Crazy thing was, the part I was playing at the time was a character in a wheelchair, so apart from some minor adjustments to the blocking, we didn't need to change the show and I didn't miss any days off work!
This is a weird one...during the course of a reasonably long season (about 100 performances) there was a part where I executed a backwards roll over some furniture...occasionally I'd knock my elbow and get a slight graze, which never quite broke the skin so I never paid attention to it, and though it never got worse, the constant knocking meant it never healed. But when the show toured to the Kimberleys, the humid conditions there meant I got an staphylococci infection through the abrasion, and within about six hours my lower arm swelled up painfully like a football. Needed lots of antibiotics, almost needed hospitalization...could've been prevented with a bit of Dettol.
Plenty of other not-so memorable injuries...surprisingly enough, not one has ever meant I've missed or interrupted a performance. (Apart from the time my appendix burst in production week, but that's not quite the same thing). And that's despite tempting fate with some pretty scary stunt work, usually involving heights (like sliding down a rope from the top of the rig at His Majesty's..!) or bizarre performance tasks (diving through a giant springloaded mousetrap...). Somehow you cope with (or don't even notice) the pain until you get off stage, and then the adrenalin wears off and you realise you're not superman anymore. The show must go on!
And lastly, I feel like I was really tempting fate during 'The Stones' by balancing at the top of a 4m upright ladder...because all four of the really serious & nasty theatre injuries I can remember have involved technicians falling off ladders (one almost on top of me)....if that's your job, PLEASE be careful, guys!
Cheers,
Craig
[%sig%]
Potentially most dangerous... I was in a show operating a small puppet dressed in the same costume as me, representing my character. The puppet was to be swooped by a giant bird, played by an actor with a hat with a pointed beak made of bamboo. In the course of the swoop, the tip of the beak hit me in the eye! Luckily I reeled in the right direction, and the brunt of the impact stabbed me just inside the eye, on the bridge of my nose. I was just about to exit anyway, and I spun off to the dressing room to check the damage in the mirror, and make certain could still actually see. I was onstage again in a few seconds, and did the rest of the show with one eye closed and weeping. Had to improvise some choreography where I was supposed to throw & catch an object, because I lost all depth perception.
During the break between shows, sought a doctor who applied medication and an eye patch (the bamboo point had scratched the surface of my eyeball). For the afternoon matinee I put an eyepatch on the puppet, so that everyone would think that's how my character was supposed to look.
Same show, a few days later....still wearing the eyepatch; backstage at the subiaco studio (very small space behind the set), bent down to pick up a prop and then standing and turning in a hurry (on my blind side) I smashed my head into a concrete pillar. Woke up a few seconds later, not enough to miss my cue but enough to not remember hitting the floor.
The show I toured the most, Dolphin Talk, involved a lot of acrobatic tumbling to represent being a dolphin. During a particularly gruelling week in Victoria, I didn't quite catch myself as I dived headfirst toward the floor and I clipped my chin hard on the ground. I could see the other actors' concern as they saw blood running from my chin, but I nodded that I was okay to continue. One of them passed me a handkerchief, which I used to staunch the blood any chance I could when I wasn't directly active in the scene. The scene at the time was about Monkey Mia, and the actor playing the Ranger casually informed the audience "not to worry about that Dolphin that's cut himself, he probably got too close to some sharp coral". During a later scene when I was slowly climbing on a frame and turning upside down, every time I faced downwards I could see the growing patch of blood where I was slowly dripping on the floor. After the show I found a doctor, who gave me four stitches in my chin..still have the scar.
Opening night of "A View From The Bridge" at the Subiaco Theatre Centre; my character is being taught to box, and the other guy pulls a swift one and decks me. Because of the nature of the space, how the audience surrounds you and can see everything, we rehearsed a contact punch, where he swung with a fist but at the last minute opened to a slap that I took and then he closed his fist in the follow-through. We'd timed this really well so it looked great and I was taking hardly any force. But in the excitement of opening night he forgot and kept a closed fist...and he was a BIG guy (remember Bob Faggeter?) I went flying, one of the actors caught me, and I was momentarily REALLY stunned. Aarne Neeme (the director) gave me a note later, reminding me that I'd messed up the lines just afterwards. I had to explain that I was actually lucky I could speak (or stand) at all!
Filming a training documentary for BP oil workers...part of the story was telling how vandals had broken into an area and stolen fuel. It wasn't originally a scene on the shotlist but I suggested I'd be able to climb over this high barbed-wire fence, and if we filmed it in silhouette I wouldn't be recognised as my other character...all fine until one take when I happened to puncture my thumb on a rusty barb. Didn't occur to me to do anything about it, I just sucked on the cut and kept doing the stunt. Wasn't until a few days later that my jaw muscles became painfully tight and I discovered I'd given myself a mild dose of tetanus.
At a festival in Korea, the performance involved use of scuba gear in an underwater display tank. I was very conscious of the safety aspects of the gear (I used to be a divemaster) and to ensure that our flight schedule was sufficiently delayed after the last performance to prevent any possibility of decompression illness (bends). But because of the humid conditions and the dirt we kept walking into the tank, I got a pretty bad ear infection, which was exacerbated by the the pressure changes during the flight home...absolute agony coming in to land, and a partial loss of hearing that took a long while to recover.
During a rehearsal...a clowning type routine where five of us would pile one on top of the other on the ground. Part way through rehearsal it was decided that we needed one of the five to be somewhere else so he was taken from that part of the routine. Unfortunately we didn't quite think through how this would alter our alignment, and one of the guys above me had his head directly above mine as I happened to throw my head back. I heard the sickening sound through my own skull, of hitting his jaw and the cracking of teeth! Turns out I actually had broken three teeth but thank God we discovered he wore dentures, so they were plastic and could be replaced. Had a good lump on my head though!
Biggest legal battle over an injury was actually due to a vehicle accident while travelling between venues. I sustained some soft tissue damage to my foot, couldn't stand on it for a while and needed physiotherapy and a podiatrist. Because the other driver was proved negligent, and because I could support a case showing that this injury was potentially damaging my established reputation, livelihood, and future earning potential, I eventually (over a year later!) received a lump sum compensation payment from the insurance company. Crazy thing was, the part I was playing at the time was a character in a wheelchair, so apart from some minor adjustments to the blocking, we didn't need to change the show and I didn't miss any days off work!
This is a weird one...during the course of a reasonably long season (about 100 performances) there was a part where I executed a backwards roll over some furniture...occasionally I'd knock my elbow and get a slight graze, which never quite broke the skin so I never paid attention to it, and though it never got worse, the constant knocking meant it never healed. But when the show toured to the Kimberleys, the humid conditions there meant I got an staphylococci infection through the abrasion, and within about six hours my lower arm swelled up painfully like a football. Needed lots of antibiotics, almost needed hospitalization...could've been prevented with a bit of Dettol.
Plenty of other not-so memorable injuries...surprisingly enough, not one has ever meant I've missed or interrupted a performance. (Apart from the time my appendix burst in production week, but that's not quite the same thing). And that's despite tempting fate with some pretty scary stunt work, usually involving heights (like sliding down a rope from the top of the rig at His Majesty's..!) or bizarre performance tasks (diving through a giant springloaded mousetrap...). Somehow you cope with (or don't even notice) the pain until you get off stage, and then the adrenalin wears off and you realise you're not superman anymore. The show must go on!
And lastly, I feel like I was really tempting fate during 'The Stones' by balancing at the top of a 4m upright ladder...because all four of the really serious & nasty theatre injuries I can remember have involved technicians falling off ladders (one almost on top of me)....if that's your job, PLEASE be careful, guys!
Cheers,
Craig
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