Wheels and castors

[Roderick]

One of my clients recently had an incident where a stage truck, rather heavy, ran over someone's foot causing serious damage (to the foot, not the set).

I am now looking at a system to prevent that from happening again, mostly by installing guards around the castors and wheels that would push your feet out of the way. Looking at that it dawned on me that there must be a relation between the size of the wheel and the likelihood of it rolling over feet. i.e. a 100mm diameter wheel is less likely to roll over your foot than a 250mm diameter wheel.

 

Does anyone know of any research in this area?

What do other people do to prevent this type of incidents?

[bruce]

Was it an actor's foot or technical staff?

 

If tech, were they wearing steelies?

[Tom]

Was it an actor's foot or technical staff?

 

If tech, were they wearing steelies?

 

That is irrelevant.

PPE should be a last resort. A guard to prevent anybodies foot from becoming caught under the wheel is a much better course of action.

[bruce]

I'm not convinced it is irrelevant, although it's difficult to know for sure without knowing the details. Which is why I asked.

 

Of course PPE should always be a last resort, but even the presence of a guard should not necessarily mean that the PPE is no longer required. In this case, there was no guard - which suggests that a previous risk assessment determined that none was necessary - so PPE would have been appropriate for the general environment. The fact that an incident has occurred will obviously influence subsequent risk assessments. Hence the question about guards is entirely sensible.

 

back to the original question. It seems obvious that the bigger the wheel, the more likely it is to "roll over" the foot. But I'm also reasonably sure that even though a wheel is smaller, that doesn't necessarily mean it will do less damage. If it doesn't "roll over", it'll crush the side, and that could do much more serious damage!

 

It's a bit like the "stilletto heel vs elephant's foot" argument. I know of people who have had their foot run over by a 2-ton land rover, who ended up with a sore foot. I also know of people who have had their foot run over by the castor of a piano, who needed hospital treatment.

[Roderick]

Was it an actor's foot or technical staff?

 

If tech, were they wearing steelies?

 

Just to answer the questions:

It was a crew member who's foot was run over.

And, unfortunately, steelies are very uncommon on Australian stages.

Slightly OT, what are the UK recommendations about steelies? When and where recommended / required?

[AndrewR]

Any place of work where there is a risk that steelies will protect you from, i.e. get-ins/outs or any lifting and carrying of equipment. (with the risk being identified by a propper risk assessment) the Employer HAS to provide steelies to all at risk, and ensure they are worn. The Employer is responsible for any injuries that would be prevented otherwise, even if the employee chooses not to wear their steelies.

 

We supply all our casual crew with steelies, not just for the usual reasons. We also have a self-propelled genie, 900Kg with solid metal wheels and no tires to speak of, ouch.

[Rich newby]

Slightly late comment, but in a place I was working recently it had a bank of posters, including safe FLT driving, first aid methods, when to ware eye and ear protection. But the one that grabbed me was one saying "In any job, wear your safety shoes!" And the picture was a cartoon of a zoo keeper having his foot bitten by a crocodile. It was quite a good poster and shows you that in any job things can be dangerous. Think about it, not really paralysing but if you work in an office and you drop a large file on your foot it will hurt alot, but with those safety dress shoes and high heels you can now buy that would eliminate the pain.

 

Rich

[Guest lightnix]

I'm trying to envisage a foot guard for a flight case castor, but can't quite picture one which won't snag on the floor. What should be standard on all flight cases (especially over a certain weight) is brakes.

 

"In any job, wear your safety shoes!"

Very sound advice :(

 

I've probably mentioned it before, but I can never forget how, just one week after I'd bought my first pair of proper steelies, a 72 way Avo dimmer rack broke free from it's handler and rolled down the truck ramp and straight over the toes of my right foot, without stopping. It hurt, but there was no damage.

 

If it hadn't been for my steelies, I swear I would have lost some toes, not to mention about 35-40% of my income for that year (this happened at the start of the Autumn season). Since then, I never, ever go on site without my steel toes on, except if I've been booked as operator only (which is rare).

 

Most "proper" steel boots will carry a rating: ANSI, BS, TÜV, EN or whatever - this will give an indication of the kind of force they can withstand. As with everything, you tend to get what you pay for - I've had my faithful old (and expensive) Caterpillars almost seven years now and there's still life in them yet, while the £35, lightweight ones I bought for summer wear eighteen months ago are completely shot.

 

Final note, some people prefer the comfort and weight of shoes, but I prefer boots which completely cover the ankle (another vulnerable spot).

[david.elsbury]

Doing a large get-in recently, the trucks had large 4x4x5 foot-ish crates that they stored the soft goods in (legs, tabs etc) and they moved them around with pallet jacks. We were attempting to get some legs out of one, and as it was on its wheels it kept moving about, so someone let it down. It came down on top of one of the touring guys feet. Ouch! He was wearing soft top sneakers.

No permanant damage, but I bet it hurt- it was on there for perhaps 6 seconds, until we could get the jack back up.

 

I recently purchased my first pair of steels. $120, a good investment. Yes they are a little heavy, but I shudder to think what might happen to my feet if I'm not wearing them. It's not an option, IMO, to go without them.

(Plus, I needed some black leather shoes for corporate gigs. So as long as I stay off building sites and the mud, should be fine.)

 

And Lightnix, agreed regarding the brakes. On all four wheels, if it's something massively heavy like a cable trunk, plus it gives you the flexibilty when packing the truck to not have to pack it a certain way in order to put the brakes on.

 

David

[AndyJones]

Having protection round castors tom me seems more dangorous than no protection. for example if you are wheeling a rack case (or something back heavey) down one of the ramps it could tip, get caught in the grips of the ramp and knock someone off the edge of the ramp-not good.

 

there is a reason that castors aren't covered!

 

cheers

 

AndyJones

[Rob]

Having protection round castors tom me seems more dangorous than no protection. for example if you are wheeling a rack case (or something back heavey) down one of the ramps it could tip, get caught in the grips of the ramp and knock someone off the edge of the ramp-not good.

 

there is a reason that castors aren't covered!

 

The OP is asking about guarding casters for use on-stage, rather than for wheeled items that are likely to be repeatedly taken up and down truck ramps though...

[mac.calder]

Having grown up on a farm for the later half of my childhood, I have been wearing steal capped blundstones since I was 8. My current pair I have had for close to four years, and I often wear them to 'black tie' events - a bit of elbow grease and some high shine boot polish and my boots often look as good, if not better than some dress shoes.

 

My current pair has cushioned soles... Now they are worth the extra $'s. When moving from hard soled blunnies to cushioned soled, it was like walking on air, and it certainly reduces the soreness of feet after standing for 12 or so hours.

[AndrewR]

For something that is always used onstage guards on the castors makes a lot of sense. We have put band equipment on a wheeled rostra on several occasions, given that the band members dont normally wear steelies.....

 

I dont know who supplies them but castors with integral guards are available (they have brakes too), we have some on our scaff tower.

[Rich newby]

Steel boot wise I use some of the amazing cats.

 

I'm not sure if anyone watches mythbusters on the discovery channel. They did a test of safety boots, applying slow pressure to the boot and dropping large weights onto them, the myth they were testing was if a weight was dropped onto a steel cap the edge would bend over and sheer off the toe. This was found to be a myth and the verdict was that in the long run safety boots will allow you the privilege of toes longer than if you were wearing non-saftey boots.

 

 

About the guard, I was thinking of some sort of cage around the wheel, problem is that the guard might get bent over when it hits something at force, which could infact end up worse for the person it runs over as the case would stop on the foot, and would have to be lifted off insted of being rolled off.

 

My vote would be for breaks, so it doesn't happen in the first place.

 

Rich

[Rob]

My vote would be for breaks, so it doesn't happen in the first place.

 

But the problem was caused by the stage truck being moved - Almost certainly a necessary operation, and one which often has to be done in low light conditions and at speed during a scene change.