Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<To allow performers to act out a sword fight on a dampen stage is completely irresponsible. >> Absolutely. The area should have been fully checked and cleared before the performance was allowed to go through. Just common sense. Folks shouldn't have to die before it's employed. <<The monorai accident resulted from a change in policy, and negligence in not having a CM that could recognize when a track switch had been made.>> Anyone who works in rails (or used to) will tell you there's been a systemic failure to place safety first and to train like they used to do. They view driving a huge monorail much the same as working a register at Pecos Bill's or loading Pooh vehicles. Transportation IS a disaster still waiting to happen. The question really is will Disney feel the heat enough to go back to the 'old' ways of doing things ... the Disney ways ... or simply the same way things were on the morning of July 5th. <<I don't know about the Indy show performer. He had only been there for a couple of weeks, and I haven't heard much about it. >> Me too, which is why I'm just speaking of what I do know. <<The key is in this statement you mad. >> I expect Disney World to be as safe as they can reasonably make it; << It has yet to be determined if they did that.>> My gut says 'absolutely not' ... and Disney clearly feels the heat. Someone in PR wrote a note that was sent to CMs yesterday from Inoverherheadmeg that said all the right things about sympathy and sadness and safety and yet said nothing at all except The Mouse is clearly running scared now.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 Oh, and just one statement on EMTs and arrival time. I had someone in my travel party pass out on a recent trip at one of the parks. Thankfully, it wasn't serious. But to say they took their sweet time arriving would be putting it mildly. I don't think it should take someone 15 minutes to arrive at a park at all. And I DO think Disney pushed Reedy Creek's EMT's to be 'as unobtrusive as possible' when responding to an onstage area ... I think when someone's health, if not life could be at stake, you just say 'screw the magic'.
Originally Posted By MPierce >> My gut says 'absolutely not' ... and Disney clearly feels the heat. << So does mine, and it's not because of some deep dark hatered of WDW management. It's simply because of the facts as I know them. Fact: You should not allow someone to back a monorail ino the TTC at night without at least a fail safe measure in place. Why not go back to the original way it was done. What's a few minutes more compared to someones life. Fact: You should never allow a CM to perform a very athletic act unless conditions are perfect for it. Water on stage is a disaster waiting to happen. Someone definetly dropped the ball on this one, and a nice young man died because of it.
Originally Posted By danyoung I just don't buy the major negligence in the Pirates situation. At the time of the accident, they'd probably done hundreds of runs of the show without any mishap. And with the common rains in Florida, probably some of those shows involved a few puddles here and there. The accident itself involved nothing more athletic than a guy getting kicked in the butt and scootching a few feet. It was just bad luck that he hit the puddle he did. Now, should they be more careful in the future? Of course. But was there major fault in doing the show under those conditions? I just don't see it.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***I just don't buy the major negligence in the Pirates situation. At the time of the accident, they'd probably done hundreds of runs of the show without any mishap. And with the common rains in Florida, probably some of those shows involved a few puddles here and there.*** Wrong. The stage should be completely dry, or the show should be cancelled. Now you're entering into MY area of expertise and all I can say is, Disney handles that stuff VERY well in Tokyo, and if all said is true then it's clearly negligence on the part of management. ***It was just bad luck that he hit the puddle he did.*** Not trying to get on your case (and perhaps you're not as familiar with "standard procedure" as I am as far as outdoor stage shows are concerned), but there really, honestly, should NOT have been any puddles to hit. That's why they shell out so much cash for stage crews. And to me this means that a) you had a negligent stage crew or b) you had a negligent management team that either tried to rush things or forced the show to go on too soon after wet weather rather than canceling.
Originally Posted By sjhym33 It is the stage managers responsability to make sure the stage is safe for a performance, including making sure the stage is dry. The stage manager is at fault if in fact there was a puddle on the stage that caused the fall. Besides OSHA the actors union should be involved to ensure that its members are working under safe conditions.
Originally Posted By danyoung Mr. X, I won't try to argue against your experience. I'm only saying from MY experience of being on stage for most of my 20's that sometimes something that turns out to be a dangerous thing simply was never looked at as being dangerous before. If you do hundreds of shows in an area without problems, you tend to feel that the area is safe. I don't know this to be true in this case, but I don't automatically state that someone in management or show prep dropped the ball, either. Perhaps more will come out of the current investigation to prove one side or the other.
Originally Posted By MPierce Safety of the Guest, and Cast Members should always be the #1 concern of Disney. Somebody definetly dropped the ball in two of these deaths. That much is very clear to me, and I think a lot of other folks also. WDW really needs to review, and change some of their safety policies.
Originally Posted By MPierce >> The accident itself involved nothing more athletic than a guy getting kicked in the butt and scootching a few feet. << At my age Dan that is a very athletic move!
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Mr. X, I won't try to argue against your experience. I'm only saying from MY experience of being on stage for most of my 20's that sometimes something that turns out to be a dangerous thing simply was never looked at as being dangerous before.*** Well, I don't know where you performed, but I'm speaking strictly about Disneys standardized safety procedures which have come about through half a century of experience with putting on these things. If it were something strange, I'd tend to agree with you. But if it's true that it was water on a stage, that's something that's very common and there are procedures in place for taking care of it (up to and including canceling the show, which happens often enough anyway with outdoor venues and even completely covered ones now and again due to heavy weather conditions). Anyway, a very tragic outcome and these are some sad stories...I do hope that changes come about due to them, at least.
