This article is one of those that you wish didn’t need to be written about. However here I am writing it anyway.
So what is is that I’m going to write about here that I wish I wasn’t? Rope inflicted injuries!
Rope isn’t safe, especially not suspension. However having said that it doesn’t mean that we should accept injuries as a matter of course, they should be few and far between. I am horrified when people shrug off injuries to models with an ‘oh well, these things happen’. Well once in a while maybe. When there are repeated injuries occurring it’s time to ask yourself some serious questions.
When it comes to injuries some people are more ‘unlucky’ than others. Generally the better a rigger is the ‘luckier’ they tend to get. Bad riggers just tend to have more ‘accidents’ the more they rig.
Now I would expect someone who has inflicted multiple injuries to stop rigging so much, to go and look at the common themes in these injuries, to work very hard to stop them occurring again. What I’m horrified to hear is ‘well these things happen’. Yeh, they happen to you don’t they? Can we guess why?
When it happens to multiple models in multiple sessions you have to look for the factor that’s common to all the injuries. And that common factor is likely to be the person tying. In all the tying I’ve done, all the models, all the time, all the suspensions I’ve had 3 nerve injuries. Two of those I’ve identified the cause and can ensure that they won’t happen again. One I simply have no concrete idea, I’ve spoken to medical professionals, never had the same problem with other models and just can’t pin it down and believe me I’ve tried. Given all that I still feel that it’s too many injuries. I’d like to not have another one. I know that the possibility is always there, it’s a risk that has to be recognised and born for what we do. It’s not one to be taken on lightly either.
So, what about someone that’s causing injuries as a matter of course? Who shrugs it off, oh it was ‘unlucky’, a ‘peculiarity’ of the model, just ‘one of those things’? It’s not just one of those things if it keeps happening. If it keeps happening then something is wrong. And that thing… is you!
Please, please, if you keep having ‘accidents’ like this be grown up enough to realise that it’s not in fact ‘unlucky’ it’s bad rigging. And if you’re not up to owning this and doing something about it then you are a bad rigger and should not be trusted to tie up anyone knowing not just that injury is possible but that it’s likely and, knowing that you don’t know what you’re doing well enough to prevent it happening over and over.
I wish I was not writing this. I wish I did not see this. If it was just one person then maybe I still would not be writing this but as I see again and again that there are those so arrogant and wilfully self deluded that they will put repeated ‘accidents’ down to anything other than their own incompetence I feel it’s better that I do for all the slim hope I have that it might do some good.