I almost died…well not really
beingzoe 7 months ago // Stagehands On the job: work stories

While my primary focus is on building CoTradeCo into a premier online destination, I occasionally still work with IATSE local 122 and more specifically with the California Center for the arts. Normally my specialty is audio, but I’m open to anything and I took a call prepping the rehearsal studio to act as an overflow conference room for an upcoming convention that needed more space.

No big deal, easy 4 hour mini, or so I thought. The rehearsal studio is lined with windows starting about 20’ feet up on one side and maybe 25’ or more on the other. The room was going to be used for presentations (slide shows and powerpoint stuff) and they needed the windows blacked out. So we get the genie lift out and set to work.

Fairly straight ahead stuff. We start on the lower side, and are getting a groove on. Thick black visqueen and gaffers tape, tab it up, seam the edges, done. The only real hassle is that pain and fatigue of working with your arms over your head the whole time (the ceilings prevented getting to a nice working height). Here I should point out that the windows are inset into alcoves maybe 3 feet or so, but the ledges on the lower windows were slanted so you couldn’t even get the lift basket up close to work, much less think about acting crazy and stepping out to get closer.

At any rate we finish up the first side in fairly short order, take coffee (union jokes can be inserted in here) and then head back to knock out the other side. One of my coworkers goes up to do the next set of windows. He discovers that the ledges on the high side are wider and not slanted. Feeling brave, we locked the legs on the genie down with the basket smack against the ledge and he manages to kneel out onto the ledge for a perfect working position. While perhaps not optimal in the safety arena, it seemed reasonable, and we would keep the genie between him and the edge like a guardrail.

To ease the fatigue for each of us, after 2 sets of windows were completed, we would rotate. I was up next. Up I went, visqueen in hand, and tape in the basket. I set the visqueen onto the ledge, and prepare to kneel out on the ledge. Except as I begin to put my knee and weight down, I find myself falling into the ledge. It was only my knee, and it was only a couple of inches that I moved, but at that height, it scared me to death.

So long story short, we managed to just get the whole basket into the area above the ledge (which admittedly was much safer) but it also took twice as long being that I could not stand up, so I’m crouched down in a genie lift basket having to work through the bars to affix unwieldy 13’ foot long sheets of visqueen to a dusty wall. By the time I was done, the joy of simply standing up and relieving my cramping legs was almost better than sex.

I’m not sure if a lesson was learned there, but for sure that split second when the sensation of the ground giving way beneath me at 30’ was terrifying.

Though I know some of you have much more insane stories, I can think of one from last year at the San Diego Sports Arena (I think there were even pictures), and hopefully I can get that person on here to share their harrowing adventure at much greater heights.

So be safe, and stay in the lift!