Another noose injury

[GridGirl]

Info here - another argument for not doing it yourself. The article says they had safety systems in place - obviously not good enough ones....

[rossmck]

This does seem like a very unfortunate accident - the noose was a prop for photo opportunities etc.

 

From what I can see from various news reports it was never MEANT to have someone hang in it (I'm guessing they just posed with their head in it with their feet still on the ground - which does seem reasonable)

 

It should hit home why ropes can be dangerous - but I really hope it doesn't result in some knee-jerk reaction by someone claiming to be following 'health and safety' rules and trying to just ban prop nooses or, worse knowing the way 'elf and safety' is going in the UK, ropes... ;)

 

Hopefully he will make a speedy recovery and sensibly admit it was either a stupid mistake or simply an accident, and not look for someone to sue as is becoming all too common.

[timd]

There's a world of difference between something used as a prop in a nightclub and as a prop in theatre isn't there? In theatre, a prop noose (or any prop for that matter) is treated with care, and has a suitable safety built in (not a real noose so can't self tighten, only held together with thread so parts on any loading etc). If everyone knows how to use it, then it never gets loaded in normal use, so the safety doesn't operate and everyone's fine. If the safety does operate, the effect might be ruined, but at least everyone's still fine. In a club, you can be certain that someone's going to try and swing on it at some point, so the safety will operate and the effect will be ruined for the rest of the evening.

 

Frankly, I'd have said that a prop like that really has no place in a nightclub.

[Stuart91]

Frankly, I'd have said that a prop like that really has no place in a nightclub.

 

It would be an interesting exercise to try to write a risk assessment for this kind of situation. Drunken ingenuity will overcome almost all practicable control measures. I can't imagine how you'd make something like this reasonably safe without ruining the effect. Even if you have staff supervising, they only need to be distracted for a few seconds. Maintaining that kind of attention over many hours will be difficult.

 

I agree with Ross - hopefully the "victim" will make a full recovery and be too ashamed to contact a firm of ambulance-chasers.

[librarian28]

A sign of the increased dilution of the English celebration of Guy Fawkes Night is a remarkable rise in the number of enquiries we get year on year from nightclubs wanting to do a hanged man stunt. We must have had a dozen or so requests this time round. Our reluctance to get involved is firstly for the reasons discussed here. (Who knows what binge-drunk, drug-crazed adolescents might get up to?).

 

 

But also, there are now strict Producers Guidelines in existence for film & telly which don't allow the showing of too much detail for fear that it might put ideas into a viewer's head. Similarly, we have concerns that if a teenager did commit suicide and it turned out that a week, a month or a year before they had seen it done at a nightclub, we could well have a lot of time-consuming paperwork to attend to.

[Andrew C]

Even with the proper kit, and a suitably instructed "actor", these things can go wrong. The twonk pulled the free-sliding noose too tight, and passed out while hanging. He's fine, but it really was a brown trousers moment!

[nb705]

In a related tangent, I'm currently on the Bellowhead tour as system tech, and one of the props we use on the show is a noose (if you can spot and take a picture of the hidden noose you'll get an item of signed merch). As part of this we ensure that it is well outside grasping distance of the audience (usually flown at about 8m) and that it never gets 'worn' unless properly stoppered.