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Author Topic: Booth Injuries - List em! Peter David Bruce Expert Film Handler Posts: 187 From: East Anglia -England Registered: Aug 2007 posted 01-16-2008 10:32 AM                    Thought this might be an interesting topic of discussion. List any and all injuries (to yourself) that you have had in the booth. sounds simple enough Most i have had are cuts and scratches from simply swinging my arms too quickly when going about my work... the usual burns you get from the makeup tables as you rest your palm on the film as it winds... and the luckiest escape ive had was when i nearly stabbed myself in the eye with a screwdriver. it was magnetic... i had to pull at it to remove it from the screw, it slipped, and ended up in my eyebrow. Look forward to hearing all the stories and mishaps. Pete  |  IP: Logged Chad M Calpito Master Film Handler Posts: 435 From: San Diego, CA Registered: Apr 2006 posted 01-16-2008 10:38 AM                        Well, here's one. While watching projector #3, I noticed that a brain-wrap was just about to occur. Quickly, I stopped the projector and in the process, I stepped wrong and injured my right calf muscle. But, I got the problem solved rather quick and got the movie back on screen within a few minutes. This happened in 2006.  |  IP: Logged Alban Birch Film Handler Posts: 63 From: Luxembourg-city , Luxembourg Registered: Jan 2007 posted 01-16-2008 12:02 PM                        I once got my finger between the upper Sprocket and roller arm on a running Victoria 9. Burned myself on the aperture. Burns while building films and the usual electrical shocks, one even went out thru my sweaty forehead (240VAC) while working on a pedestal  |  IP: Logged Ron Funderburg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 814 From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA Registered: Nov 2007 posted 01-16-2008 12:21 PM                        I had a projectionist grab the reel on a tower system after the movie had rewound and got his fingers inside one of the reel openings. It nearly broke his hand and it certainly broke him of grabbing spinning reels right after they complete the rewind! Me nothing much to report, one pulled muscle while moving a big long movie by myself! burnt fingers on plates changing them before they had a chance to cool down.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-16-2008 12:49 PM                        I've only had one injury that I can think of. I was stopping a House reel from spinning (on the hand rewind) and accidentally got my index finger too close to the reel. One of the spokes jammed my finger and broke the whole fingernail in half down the middle. I learned my lesson that day!  |  IP: Logged David Zylstra Master Film Handler Posts: 432 From: Novi, MI, USA Registered: Mar 2007 posted 01-16-2008 01:32 PM                     The first theatre I worked at had a story about a previous manager that got his finger stuck in the film as it was being taken up on the platter - he had to scream for the projectionist to come and stop the projector before his finger got twisted off, no real harm done except his pride. I once got my finger stuck in the upper sprocket on an FP-20 - I had to yank my finger out sideways as the sprocket was grinding into my finger - left me with a ragged L shaped cut.  |  IP: Logged Richard P. May Expert Film Handler Posts: 243 From: Los Angeles, CA Registered: Jan 2006 posted 01-16-2008 01:44 PM                     This didn't happen to me, or in a booth, but certainly can. One of the film inspectors in our distribution operation at Turner (no longer in operation) was rewinding from a plastic reel, and holding the supply reel back with her hand. The reel broke, and she received a very nasty cut, which kept her out on disability for several weeks. Fast spinning reels can be treacherous, and probably more so with those that just snap together. RPM  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-16-2008 02:11 PM                     I guess I'm a real klutz! I get all kinds of bumps and scrapes working in the booth. Scratches and scrapes are par for the course for me. I was changing a lamp one evening and I reached my hand into the lamphouse to feel if the lamp was still hot. I didn't touch it. I only put my hand NEAR it to feel for heat. It was. I recoiled my hand out of the lamphouse and hit my knuckles against a sharp piece of metal. That cost me four stitches across the back of my right hand. I was teaching a new guy to build up a movie but he left the splicer on the bench about 20 feet away from where the projector where we needed to work. The top was open as it sat there. I went over to pick it up and I carried it back to the projector. I went to set it down and noticed that my hand was all sticky and wet. Dumbass me! I was in such a hurry that I caught my finger on the razor blade and sliced it open! There's another couple of stitches across my left index finger! I was carrying an amplifier down a flight of stairs. Those things must weigh a ton! Well, the bottom fell out of the box and it smashed my left foot. Broken toe! I was on a ladder, trying to repair a ripped screen in the auditorium. I told one of my helpers to set the ladder up so I could do some prep work, beforehand. Dumb shit, me! I trusted the kid to set it up properly and went up without checking to be sure it was stable. (Honestly! Don't I have a right to expect it will be set up properly when I ask for it to be?) Anyway, the ladder came down with me riding it. My right foot got caught under the rung with all my weight on it. Busted right toe. Plus the toenail got infected and I had to have it excised! Took over two years to grow back properly. There was a big show in one theater. It was a press screening or some kind of special sneak. I forget, exactly. Not important except to say that this show HAD to go right. Anyway, another kid threaded the projector and started it without double checking his work. The pad roller on the upper feed sprocket wasn't all the way closed. He blew out his upper loop just as he started. I darted over and, while the thing was still running, I slipped the film back onto the sprocket and closed the pad roller. The show never missed a beat but I ended up with "railroad tracks" across three fingers. Electric shocks? Skinned knuckles? Stitches and even the occasional broken bone?... It's all in a days's work! I think I can honestly say that there is a little piece of me in every projector I ever worked on!  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 01-16-2008 02:14 PM                     I got a few of them listed here in my 38 yrs in this field. I did have more minor situations, but these below really answers this topic question: 1- Dropping a red hot negative carbon stub on my tennis shoe burning a hole in the top and getting a 2nd degree burn on top of my foot, 2-being stupid in checking my film path while the machine is going and and getting my finger punched with holes from a spinning sprocket when the finger goes under the pad roller assembly. 3-slicing my finger when inspecting a film (acetate) and suddenly, as the film goes by as I'm holding it suddenly had one side gone and the torn acetate side was razor sharp. 4-doing a changeover and the upper reel falls out of the magazine when the catch lever decides to fail and the full 2k reel lands on my foot (I would have died if it was a 6k reel..) leaving me with a nasty bruise and was hobbling for a few weeks. 5-the biggest one when I was at a triplex running 6k machines. I was rewinding a reel on those old Neumade PR table and that spring clip decides to go on the feed end just as the reel became empty. Reel hopped off the spindle spinning about 2k-rpm, hit the floor, dug two grooves in the tile, ran down the length of the booth and smashed in the far booth wall. This wasn't an injury situation, but came close since I was just there by a machine as that reel wizzed by me - suddenly thinking that I would have been without toes if I was 4 inches closer..  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 01-16-2008 02:22 PM                     Rewinding some trailers onto a core and the cotton gloves I was wearing were a "one size fits all" (meaning they're too big for almost everyone) so the fingertip got caught in the film. Before I could stop the bench, my thumb got pulled into the film attached to the core and my nail got torn pretty bad. Also have 2 matching scars on opposite sides of my lower back; both from hitting them on the corners of a circuit breaker. First one I kneeled down to pick up a marker or something when building up a movie, stood up quickly, and forgot that the breaker box stuck out of the wall probably 6 inches. Ended up with a nasty cut that was more of a puncture wound. The 2nd one was from one auditorium that the electrical panel in question seemed to be possessed by some demon; if you closed the door to it and walked away, it would stay shut but if you closed it then walked near it (which was necessary since the platter was right next to the panel) the door would open on it's own slowly and quietly. But that one isn't as bad as the other. It's like the thing could sense the presence of humans and open when you were turned around.  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 01-16-2008 02:46 PM                       Mine were mostly cuts in my left thumb and index finger, from inspecting film every day, back when I was chief at the Kentucky Theatre in Lexington (a repertory house at the time). Twice, I've been conked in the head by the spokes of a spinning Potts platter, as I was working underneath.  |  IP: Logged Ron Funderburg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 814 From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA Registered: Nov 2007 posted 01-16-2008 03:07 PM                        If anyone can talk John McConnell in to posting it he has a great worst case story Well John?  |  IP: Logged Adam Martin I'm not even gonna point out the irony. Posts: 3686 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Nov 2000 posted 01-16-2008 07:29 PM                     See this thread.  |  IP: Logged

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